The incongruous title of this B-movie actually makes sense because it is a
comical mockumentary about the making of a very bad horror film named
Brutal Massacre.
Harry Pendrecki is a horror auteur who once had a major hit and followed
that with a few cult successes, but has now fallen on hard times with a
steady string of failures. The film follows his travails as he gets the
financing for the picture and drags his crew out to the wilds to make it.
The script offers a double dose of insider knowledge, in that it not only
riffs on the problems involved in filming indie/guerilla films in general,
but it also looks at the special nature of horror films and their fan
base. The latter provides some of the film's best laughs when Harry
interacts with the horror film community and answers questions about his
past masterpieces, including Sasquatch at the Mall and Killer Koala, a
unique horror film targeted at very young children. According to Harry and
his A.D., Killer Koala was a very moral film which taught values to
youngsters, because the evil koala never killed children who ate their
vitamins and brushed their teeth.
Since this film is a comedy about horror films, the cast combines comic
actors like David Naughton, Brian O'Halloran, and Gerry Bednob with horror
vets like Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen, and director Mick Farris ("Masters
of Horror"). Now that I think about it, David Naughton belongs in both
groups, since he starred in An American Werewolf in London. As director
Pendrecki, Naughton is barely recognizable from his Dr. Pepper days. His
hair now makes him look like Dr Salt and Pepper, and he's added
substantial girth to his belly, but all of that works quite well with his
laid-back personality to give the film an anchor. Harry tries with
reasonable diligence to complete his film but around him is chaos: sound
and F/X guys who have no idea how to do sound and F/X, locals who steal
from the set and/or deliberately ruin the shots, crew members who do
nothing but take cigarette breaks, other crew members who die during the
shoot, non-actors pressed into service reading lines, real actors who quit
in the middle of the film, actresses who balk at nudity, investors who
insist on nudity, and so forth.
If you're seeking a slick, subtle comedy filled with realistic characters,
this ain't it, but if you would like a lot of broad laughs in the context
of a wildly exaggerated view of the problems involved in making an indie
horror film, you might just enjoy this. The laughs are obvious, but the
writer created the film out of his own experiences in the genre, so it's a
way to pass some time getting acquainted with an insider's view
of his own industry. I found that it made the time pass quickly.
The Official Site has
lots of goodies: including a
press kit with high-res digital photos
