Secrets, Secrets, Who's got The Secrets?: Severed Lives (2006)

Severed Lives (2006)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Mary Alice Watkins, Alexis Celeste Elliott, Cathy Baron

For their senior thesis project, a small group of film students decided to shoot a horror documentary on their campus' twenty year-old urban legend in which it's said that a killer once went on a co-ed killing spree back in the day. As these girls gather around one night to think of a script that isn't going to devolve into cheesy horror territories, they would soon find out that they're in a real life slasher flick as a masked maniac starts stalking and picking them off dead one by one, seemingly in order to keep this film from ever being made.

As far as slasher cheapies go, Severed Lives (2006) suffers from expected pitfalls commonly found in a do-it-yourself production, mainly an awful sound design, dipping picture quality and price tag-constrained special effects. But in its defense, there is a little more heart put into this film as writer, director and producer Jake Helgren (who would later work on tons of Lifetime Channel and Hallmark movies) fully understands the core enjoyment of a simple slasher flick and done their best to implement it while tightening the purse strings. 

Clocking just less than fifty minutes, the direction is fluidly paced and focused, there's a couple of inspired camera work and editing, as well as a workable script done away with possibly some of the more agreeable acting done in a micro budget slasher film. The bodycounter elements are also a decent bunch once you get past the budgetary restraints; most of the onscreen murders are coupled with fair cat-and-mouse sequences and punctuated with a good helping of blood and chunks. The killer's guise is striking with their red faced mask and long black stringy hair creeping up on their victims like ghoulish hag. Their motive for the killings to teeter between maniacally clever and cheesy dramatic, but it does work with the twist reveal Severed lives (2006) went with, tying up everything that's been set into motion quite nicely in the end.

A fun enough slasher hokum if you're not asking for much, Severed Lives (2006) delivers all the manic massacre goods on a very tightened belt and I find that admirable enough to at least earn a watch.

Bodycount:

1 female attacked inside a car, killed offscreen

1 female garroted with a belt

1 male attacked, later found stabbed to death

1 female knifed in the neck

1 female impaled with a javelin

1 female shot on the head

1 female knifed in the gut

Total: 7

One Bloody Pub Crawl: Slaughtered (2010)

Slaughtered (Australia, 2010) (AKA "Schooner of Blood")

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Chloé Boreham, Christopher Tomkinson, Steven O'Donnell

So, a dead body is found in a pub during a busy evening. The smartest thing you could probably do in this situation, apart from not go near the body, is call the cops and call it a night, right? Well, screw that sensible logic! Slaughtered (2010) says we should keep the bar open, have all the staff continue working and not talk about the dead bodies piling up all over the place! 

Yep, it's one of those movies.

Plot is arguably nonexistent in this shlock; we simply follow the staff of a local pub going about their night dealing with hapless drunks, new hires and potential red herrings who may or may not be responsible for a murder that happened five minutes into the film. Beers are served, pervy flirts make out in the backrooms, all the while a dark cloaked someone donning a mask full of glass shards do their fair share of onscreen and offscreen slayings until it's eventually obvious to the staff (but not most of the bar patrons, somehow!) that a killer is on the loose. Cops were called but only one showed by the end of the film and the killer basically got away with it all then, leaving us with a half-assed reveal that is virtually pointless as no motives were given and everything just stopped there! 

With acting chops as amateur as they can get and shitty audio mixing grinding up our precious ear drums, the only good thing I can point out in Slaughtered (2010) is that the gore effects and make-up are passable for a low budget indie and the killer's disguise is pretty badass in its near-simplicity. Other than that, this braindead slasher story is the very definition of forgettable despite the odd choices in its direction, like a staggering sad drunk who lost a bet. There's really nothing else to this film so feel free to bother yourself with this one if you absolutely have nothing else better to do.

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat cut with a wood saw

1 male found stabbed in the chest with a keg coupler

1 male hacked on the face with a spade

1 female stabbed in the chest with a wood saw, force fed a glass shard and had her neck broken

1 female stabbed in the gut with a wood saw

1 male found with his throat cut and eyes missing

1 male found slaughtered

1 male stabbed in the chest with a wood saw

1 male found slaughtered

1 male hacked to death with a bill

Total: 10

Dog Pagans in Campus: Blood Cult (1985)

Blood Cult (1985)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Juli Andelman, Charles Ellis and James Vance

I remember reading about Blood Cult (1985), interestingly, through a review of another low-budget, cheesy slasher known as Video Violence (1987). The article mentioned that the inspiration for Video was from one of its director's experiences at a rental store where a mother once came and thought of renting a horror film for her kids so long as it doesn't include nudity. Just nudity. Nevermind the gory violence, but apparently onscreen boobs and butts are the bigger concern. That memory was then recreated as a scene in Video with a mother character renting Blood Cult for her little kiddies and that got me into looking into that title. 

In some ways, I'm glad I did!

  

Billed it as the "first movie made for the home video market" (never mind Boardinghouse (1982) or Sledgehammer (1983), I guess), this mini-budget horror shlock starts with a college girl showering (her big poofy hairdo remaining poofy, logic be damned) while a figure dressed in black sneaks into the sorority house, meat cleaver at hand. Before long, the maniac cuts down the soapy sorority babe into a hacked-up mess with a limb taken and a strange gold coin with a dog's head sigil left behind. A second murder would soon occur at another sorority, this time a poor gal is decapitated and her roommate gets savagely beaten unconscious with the aforementioned dismembered noggin'. Trashy, cheap yet cheesy fun!

Getting on the case is one Sheriff Ron and he's reasonably baffled by the morbidly macabre nature of the killings. Listing the help of his daughter, a local librarian, Sheriff Ron deduces that the slayings might be of the occult nature as the dog-faced coins left at each crime scene are linked to a cult that worships a canine god named Caninus and believes in boons granted through the offering of body parts. It's no surprise then that more murdered college girls start piling up all over town, a farmer's pet dog is reportedly decapitated and strange "poachers" are spotted at some nearby woods holding bonfires and eerily chanting. Things that I'm sure would end well for horror movie sheriffs who are kicking overtime to investigate them...

Understandably loathed by many horror movie fans for reasons ranging from amateurish production and tedious direction, to monotonous pacing and all-too-natural casts (as in, the most everyday-looking people out there with acting chops just as unremarkable), I, however, couldn't help but appreciate Blood Cult (1985) for what it is, a cheesy horror shlock that does have its good moments; looking past its low budget mediocrities and overly talky detective elements, there's decent editing and camera work to be seen, as well as unintentional hilarity from its dodgy writing and how dramatic (or lacking) the acting and line reading can get. The generous amount of blood splatter and gore whenever the movie dips into the slasher elements are a nice bonus, but I genuinely like the overall story, finding it quite interesting for a low rent, mid-80s gothic serial slasher piece.

Though not an overall great movie, I couldn't put myself to call Blood Cult (1985) a complete waste of time, not with it being entertaining in its own terribly cheesed-up way. You could say this title is a guilty pleasure of mine, a joke of a horror flick that I just find tolerable enough for some laughs and an occasional watch. If you're looking for a shot-on-video slasher and don't mind sitting through a bad one, feel free to try out this movie!

Bodycount:

1 female hacked to death with a meat cleaver

1 female decapitated offscreen, head used as a weapon

1 female hacked to death with a meat cleaver

1 female found hacked on the head, fingers chopped off

1 male hacked to death with a meat cleaver

1 female falls to her death

Total: 6

Stoned, Boned and Owned: Halloweed (2016)

Halloweed (2016)
Rating: ***

Starring: Simon Rex, Shannon Brown and Jim O'Heir

Not wanting the infamy of having a serial killer father tainting their already lackluster lives screwing teachers of the night and smoking the devil's lettuce, step-brothers Trent and Joey Modine haul their asses to a town called Mooseheart to start anew, get their shit together and maybe even make a honest living to better themselves. 

Easier said than done, though, when the supposed All American Dream town is more of an all American dumpster fire with overly excited cops inching to do cavity searches, small town politicians getting on each other's throats and intolerable trailer trash making up the majority of the headcount. Nonetheless, the brothers make it work as Trent gets a job at a suicide support circle in hopes of impressing a local girl who starred in an infomercial promoting the town, all the while Joey works under Mooseheart's main pumpkin (and weed) supplier, Patch, as a drug donkey.

All is well until the town's legendary boogeyman, the Candy Corn Killer, suddenly makes a reappearance, coinciding conveniently with the Modine brother's arrival. Not wanting Mooseheart to figure out their less than stellar reputation as the sons of a maniac and have the new wave of murders blamed on them, Trent and Joey have no choice but to figure out who's behind the killings, save the town they're starting to accept as home and maybe, just maybe, smoke a hashful to celebrate a job well done. (Given they survive all of this...)

A stoner comedy at most, a slasher film as an afterthought, Halloweed (2016) is an absurd mix of humor and horror that doesn't quite balanced the "haha's" and the "holy shits" as nicely as it should, but I appreciate the effort done as it does have its moments of lowbrow quippy, cheesy fun and even a decent slasher murder or two. 

For half of the film's hundred minute running time, the story focuses on the Modine brothers settling in to the new town and getting around the weirdos living in it, leading up to plentiful subplots such as an election campaign between two manipulative arses brilliantly played by Parks and Recreation's Jim O'Heir and Reaper's Ray Wise, and Joey's drug-selling shenanigans under the literal watchful eye of Danny Trejo's eye-patch wearing wannabe drug lord who kept spewing "he who has the weed, has the power", even dragging along a pot dealer played by, unsurprisingly, Jason Mewes of Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob fame, to help with the operation. It amounts to a what's more or less a series of comedic moments tackling lowbrow topics of gross bodily functions, sexual and gay innuendos, and, yes, weed jokes, though only a handful of these seems to hit their marks on the laughs, while the rest kinda fizzled out for how over-the-top and desperate they feel. Fortunately, Shannon Brown and Simon Rex did a swell job on comedic timing and delivery as Trent and Joey respectively, with Trent being the straight man to Joey's immature and giddy personality, both actors giving their best to make these brothers be the hilarity that mostly carried the film. 

Things do get a lot better once Halloweed (2016) finally goes hack'n stab on us on its second half, kicking it off with a decently fun scene in a courthouse wherein one of the politicians gets a surprise visit from a killer donning a baby mask and full grown onesie, somehow pulling in all the good ropes of a cat-and-mouse chase and even throwing in seemingly supernatural hints with doors opening and closing by themselves and hauntingly devilish baby giggles echoing throughout the empty halls. Cue in the murder mystery angle as we learn of the town's history with a maniac who terrorized its citizens back in the 80s, somehow evading capture over the years, and I do get the vibes that this film is aiming to be a little smarter or wittier with its humor by going meta on us suddenly, name-dropping horror movies left and right, though it never took the horror itself too seriously, going as far as having this angle play second bananas to a romantic comedy plotting between Trent and his love interest. This means that the slashings are kept to a bare minimum after the initial attack and the slayings that come after are hardly on the creative side, but the comedic flow of the whole thing works nicely enough and the goofiness of the killer's get-up and how our heroes try to save their skin (and the town) without actually doing much in terms of confronting the goon did got a decent chuckle out of me. 

As stoner horror comedies go, Halloweed (2016) is watchable. Even more so, perhaps, if you're in a recreational state during Halloween (Yes, this is also a Halloween movie. Hardly felt like one but, yeah...) It's far from the best example of clashing marijuana humor with masked maniac massacre mayhem, but it works close enough to being a worthwhile viewing, given you don't mind the obvious low budget and the low blow running gags.

Bodycount:

1 male executed via electric chair

1 male knifed to death

1 female knifed to death

1 male gutted with a knife

1 male killed with a knife, mostly offscreen

1 male knifed in the side, bled to death

Total: 6

"Golden Title": Frozen Flesh (2001)

Frozen Flesh (2001)

Rating: LEGENDarily bad

Starring: Frank Gillis

I found it. I've seen it. The horror movie to end all horror movies. A macabre masterpiece of maniacal madness. A psychological shocker of surreal sins. An aberration of abnormal anguish. A presentation of putridness unmatched by many classics I've seen in my entire existence. A heart-stopping horrifying horrors of horror simply known as Frozen Flesh (2001)!

With a running time of almost two hours, we see the methodic mindset of a masked mass murderer expertly played by the one and only Frank Gillis, as they showcase to us what goes in the mind of a deranged individual as they feast upon what's not meant to be feasted. A gruesome buffet of human viscera and gore fills the screen every minute, artistically shot in red tint and sickening close-up, surely to sear it in our minds as we sit through this nightmare play of devilish directions. A true art of hellish sensibilities and a daring display of deadly malice, we would soon see this monster wield their blood-caked knife with furious frenzy, either to battle their own invisible demons or to succumb in their need to defile the human form with a swift carve of their blade, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

And over...

Okay, truth be told, that's two hours of my life I'm not getting back. Frozen Flesh (2001) is a weird little shit of a "movie" where we literally just watch a guy in a striped shirt and bag over their head just sitting there, while a plastic body part that you can buy at a Halloween goods store being passed on as this garbage's "gore effects" gets cooked inside an oven before our wannabe horror star just starts wielding the knife in the air repeatedly, in different angles. All of this in almost two hours of running time! Two fucking hours of red tint and bad score, while we watch what's basically some guy's take on a performance art without the striking and though-provoking sensibilities of actual art. I'm sure this is all good on paper at some point, maybe even philosophical or psychological even, but in practice and execution, I think a shitload of things got lost and tossed away, resulting to this head-on attack on our endurance and patience.

It's only fitting to cover this pile of cinematic excrement on April Fools Day as that's what it is. A joke. A big stupid joke of a movie that I guess only those with a certain warped mindset (or high on something both powerful and illegal) would find entertaining. If you're one of the people who enjoyed Frozen Flesh (2001) then more power to you! I'm glad this movie gave you joy while you find yourself strapped in a straightjacket and locked inside a padded room that one time you had a mental breakdown. In the meantime, the rest of us here would be better off seeing other movies to cleanse our palate of this worthless filth and that includes cheekier and hammier bad films that are Oscar winners when compared to this...

Bodycount:

1 victim seen with their pieces being cooked. For an hour. 

Total:1

Hundred Aching Woods: Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey (United Kingdom, 2023)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Craig David Dowsett

With Winnie the Pooh characters becoming public domain around January of 2022, it's almost inevitable that we would see a horror spin to the beloved stuffed bear and his human bestfriend Christopher Robin, though I would have expected something a tad more inventive than this.

In an animated opening, Blood and Honey tells the tale of a young Christopher Robin who, some time ago, stumbled across five creatures deep in a forest called the Hundred Acre Woods, all of them half human, half animal abominations. The boy befriended the creatures, visiting them over the years bringing food and playing games, until the time comes that Christopher grew up to be a young man with aspirations to become a doctor. Thinking his crossbreed friends can fend for themselves in the woods, Robin leaves to go to college, not knowing that the creatures have gotten so used to him providing for them that they didn't know what to do once food becomes scarce in the Hundred Acre Woods. Starving to death, the animals made the traumatic decision to eat one of them, a heinous act that broke them into swearing bloody vengeance upon humans, especially the one who abandoned them.

Moving forward five years later, Christopher Robin returns to the woods, hoping to introduce his new wife Mary to his animal friends. Instead of a warm welcome, he finds the Hundred Acre Woods devoid of joy and the once jolly and silly pig named Piglet and bear named Winnie The Pooh are now deformed into grotesque mutant killers with an insatiable bloodlust. The mutants murder Christopher's wife and capture him to punish and torture.

And with that, we now set our attention to a group of girls visiting a cabin nearby Pooh and Piglet's stomping grounds and, honestly, this is when the film flopped down the road and hit every overused jagged rock the further it goes as we're practically treated with the barest of bare bone slasher treatment a low budget production can make. Girls got the attention of the two freaks. Freaks start stalking the cabin. Girls freak out and get hunted down. Climactic showdown. All of this could have been an enjoyable, cheeky ride of blood and guts but, in a lack of better terms, Blood and Honey decided to be a mostly straightforward slasher. And I'm putting great emphasis on straightforward. 

Taking away the gimmick that the two killers here are slasherfied beloved characters from English author A. A. Milne's children's books, there really is nothing else that the movie offers here except the same old backwoods hack and slash we've seen a hundred times before. Sure, Piglet is a boar now for some reason and Pooh Bear has that one scene where he summons a swarm of bees to stung one fella to death, but apart from that, these freaks could have been easily replaced by any other masked psychos and the story would practically remain the same. It also doesn't help that the characters are lackluster at their best and boring at their worst, with the main girl basically the only one with some bit of depth as it is revealed she's doing this outing to get over a horrifying stalking experience. To be fair, the acting is fine and all, but if the characters involved failed to stand out from your usual nerdy girl and social media obsessive types, it ain't doing the film that big of a favor.

Then there's the matter of tone which is, personally, the film's biggest drawback; you would expect that a horror Winnie The Pooh movie would try to at least squeeze in some satire at how ridiculous the story sounds, maybe throw in a joke or two at it even, but instead the film tries too hard to be a serious slasher with dramatics involving abandonment and trauma, clashing greatly and sucking the fun out of the silliness of killer animal mutants with exaggeratedly cartoonish evil faces murdering paperthin characters in gruesome ways. (Well, as gruesome as the budget allows it) 

On a technical level, Blood and Honey has an undeniable air of cheapness when the supposed mutant man-animals are obviously men in silicone masks, but at least it's easy on the eyes save for a dodgy editing or two. At the end of it all, the movie is a wasted opportunity and though I appreciate director, writer and editor Rhys Frake-Waterfield doing all of this effort to make horror Pooh Bear work, the lack of energy, excitement and maybe a tad more twisted creativity simply leaves an uninspired taste in my mouth the moment the ending credits roll. Oh, bother, don't bother.

Bodycount:

1 female strangled with a length of chain, neck crushed

1 female repeatedly beaten, shredded through a woodchipper

1 female had her head crushed with a car

1 female brained with a sledgehammer

1 female mauled to death

1 male beaten to death with a sledgehammer

1 female stabbed through the mouth with a machete

1 male had his face clawed off

1 male stomped on the head

1 male had his throat clawed

1 male stung to death by bees

1 female decapitated

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

Total: 13

Madmen and Mexican Mushroom Cupcakes: The Mansion (2017)

The Mansion (Le Manoir) (France, 2017)

Rating: **

Starring: Marc Jarousseau, Nathalie Odzierejko and Ludovik

Knowing that this could be the last time their group will ever get together as college comes to a close, Nadine and her boyfriend Fabrice plans to host a New Year's Eve party at a rented Belgian mansion themed to the year 2000. Their guests include licentious Samantha and her very agitated ex Stephane as well as her young bookish cousin Charlotte, aspiring actor Djamal, wimpy Bruno, assertive gal Jess and goggle-wearing stoner Drazic. (The classic slasher stereotypes~)

For most parts, everything seems alright with the gang socializing with one another due to the mansion's lack of cell service and, once the festivities begin, everyone there is simply having a ball dancing, drinking and gorging on mushroom-laced cupcakes. But then Charlotte disappears into the woods, Nadine's dog "Kitty" is found decapitated and Djamal is found dead and hung. (Figuratively and literally) It's soon clear to our gang that someone wants them dead and it all may or may not have something to do with the mansion's former owner Baron Gluckenstein Muller, Satanic rituals and missing children.

As a production, The Mansion (2017) has a competent look when it comes to the gothic backdrop, with lighting, cinematography and set design working altogether to give us a slick-looking yet atmospheric terror mansion and a decent deal of creative editing came handy when giving the place an intimidating and ghoulish feel whenever a scene calls for it, resulting to a lot of chilling visuals fit for an old dark house story. 

It does take a while before anything remotely interesting happens, however, with the gang spending twenty-some minutes after an opening kill practically feeding us one exposition to the next of either what their whole deal is or what's troubling them. With The Mansion (2017) being a horror comedy and all, the focus of these dialogues (and the movies general direction for that matter) is to make us laugh and the brand of comedy presented here juggles mostly within the sleazy and juvenile. That said, if we're not engaged in conversation concerning the weirdest place to have sex in or the troubles of having a large manhood, we could be treated with jokes about getting high and talking to imaginary warthogs or how an unfortunate fella steps on dog shit before finding said dog's severed head. It's a gaggle of funnies I'm sure would cater to some, but I personally just find most of it dull and overused, with only a scant few that honestly got a genuine chuckle out of me.

As a slasher, The Mansion (2017) has its share of straightforward killings, though half and half of the rest of the slayings do lean to the brand of tired humor this film runs on, with one example being a fellow who, as a dying wish, have two of his female friends act out erotic roleplays while he jerked himself to death. It's a mixing of gore and gags that can be a real hassle to go through as they really try their hardest to sell the punchline for these kills, often overstaying their welcome before finally moving ahead to the next scene. Thankfully, though, the last act appears to have found a good balance on humor and horror as not only do we get some nasty deaths, but the twist reveal and the motive behind the murders came with some laughably fun visual gags and hilariously awesome deaths involving hallucinogenic overdose and cobra venom.

All in all, The Mansion (2017) is pretty staple example of a slasher comedy. It has the blueprints of a workable bonkers bodycounter, though the type of humor they went with is a real divisive brand. If you would like to go past beyond jokes involving masturbation, infidelity and animal feces, then you could do better, but for anybody else with a funny bone for this kind of stuff, more power to you lot, then, and I hope you'll enjoy this somehow.

Bodycount:

1 female dragged away, killed

1 male murdered offscreen, later seen hung by the groin

1 male had his legs chopped off with an animal trap, succumbs to his wounds

1 female had her neck crushed with a rolling pin

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male seen taxidermized

1 male seen taxidermized

1 male seen taxidermized

3 female heads seen taxidermized

1 female ran through with a pitchfork

1 female set ablaze

1 male swallows a poison dart frog, poisoned

1 male succumbs to cobra venom 

Total: 15