On their last weekend together before splitting off to go to college, a group of friends head to a nearby uninhabited island for some fun. At the same time, an escaped serial killer known as The Butcher is cutting his way through town - and his last stop is the friends' supposedly private island.
With some fairly decent acting and a really short run time, Butchered didn't really bother me as much as it should have. And actually, the lack of feature-lengthness (the movie is only about 70 minutes long) is kind of a shame because the movie had some things going for it - mainly the aforementioned acting. These random people whose names I do not know were not as horrible to watch on screen as other low-budget performers so that helped the movie a lot. Okay, not a lot but some. It definitely needed some help in other areas.
The first ten minutes of the movie are not only dull and uninteresting, but also completely unnecessary. There's a girl in one of those Janet Leigh/Drew Barrymore roles where we're led to believe that she's going to be the star of the movie - and then she just gets killed. This scenario worked for other movies, not so much for this one. You forget about it as soon as the scene is over. So then after a slightly awesome yet totally misleading credit sequence, we have to take the time to meet the people who will actually be the stars of the movie and suffer their boring set up.
After a long ass seven minute party scene and some boring exposition, the kids finally head to the island. They plan to stay there for three days but it didn't look to me like anybody brought even a change of clothes. Anyway. They talk, they party, they contemplate their futures, they deal with the requisite douchebag guy who they are supposedly friends with but nobody seems to like. At about the 40 minute mark, I had to pause the Netflix to see how much time was left. Holy crap! Only 30 minutes to go?! The Butcher has just shown up and they only have 30 minutes left to split all the friends up, kill them one by one, make silly escape plans, and possibly kill the Butcher? How's all this going to happen in that short amount of time?
Surprisingly, they get it done, but not in any kind of unique or memorable way. One girl gets chased for a while by the killer after storming away in a huff; which is a great plot point to get the other kids to split up to go look for her. How convenient. Two people start getting it on in the sand, so they're goners. The rest just keep deciding that being apart will make them easier targets than if they were together until we're left with the two people that you knew would survive the whole movie from the beginning. No surprises at all.
I thought I had seen a lot of stupid people making stupid mistakes in horror movies before, but I got a new one with Butchered. While the token black guy and his girlfriend are wandering around at night, looking for the aforementioned girl who stormed away in a huff, the Butcher suddenly appears in front of them (silhouetted in a beautiful swirl of fog, might I add). Token black guy actually tells his girlfriend to run away while he stays to fight the maniac with an axe. Loser must have had a death wish or something. Needless to say, he dies.
Though I still say that the acting is okay, everything else about Butchered is flat. No scares, no gore, lame killer, unsatisfying ending. It's only 70 minutes long if you really want to give it a shot but there's really no need. There's nothing here that you haven't seen a thousand times over.
After a long ass seven minute party scene and some boring exposition, the kids finally head to the island. They plan to stay there for three days but it didn't look to me like anybody brought even a change of clothes. Anyway. They talk, they party, they contemplate their futures, they deal with the requisite douchebag guy who they are supposedly friends with but nobody seems to like. At about the 40 minute mark, I had to pause the Netflix to see how much time was left. Holy crap! Only 30 minutes to go?! The Butcher has just shown up and they only have 30 minutes left to split all the friends up, kill them one by one, make silly escape plans, and possibly kill the Butcher? How's all this going to happen in that short amount of time?
I thought I had seen a lot of stupid people making stupid mistakes in horror movies before, but I got a new one with Butchered. While the token black guy and his girlfriend are wandering around at night, looking for the aforementioned girl who stormed away in a huff, the Butcher suddenly appears in front of them (silhouetted in a beautiful swirl of fog, might I add). Token black guy actually tells his girlfriend to run away while he stays to fight the maniac with an axe. Loser must have had a death wish or something. Needless to say, he dies.
Though I still say that the acting is okay, everything else about Butchered is flat. No scares, no gore, lame killer, unsatisfying ending. It's only 70 minutes long if you really want to give it a shot but there's really no need. There's nothing here that you haven't seen a thousand times over.
Well, it didn't hurt like I thought it would - but I knew the extra padding to bring up the original run time - which was 47 minutes - would do it in. That opening scene was part of the padding, as was the boring exposition. Still, as you say, not the worst movie in the world. The last picture above is my buddy Shaun O'Rourke - who co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed, and as that picture shows - co-starred in the movie. He has some wild stories to tell about trying to get the movie distributed - which are more interesting than the movie itself!
ReplyDeleteThat's cool that you know one of the filmmakers! I do understand about the padding - I remember having to do that on some of my crappy films in college and it always seemed to bring the story down instead of up. The scenes with the Butcher needed a lot more padding, and the climax as well. The movie had potential but I guess it had the same problems that a lot of indie movies do - probably not enough money or time.
DeleteDon't worry, you're not last! I still have Death of Evil and The Initiation of Sarah to do, which I would totally have done last week if not for Rifftrax Live and my preorder of The Last Story coming in. ^_^
ReplyDeleteAnd this week the long-awaited Way of the Samurai 4 comes out...geez. I'd better do both films tonight or I'll be hopeless this week too. O_O
Haha, glad I'm not the only one! Maybe we should make the deadlines for this thing a little more strict to keep my butt in gear.
DeleteI feel your pain, Michele. I already got this movie a couple of rounds back.
ReplyDeleteIf your experience is anything like mine, your review will get someone involved in the film to comment and tell you how hard it was to make and so forth.
The movie is still utterly generic and nothing more. Good to see that we agree, I guess.
Oh, embarrassing.... I'M the one who gave you this movie in a past round! I totally forgot. And yeah, generic is probably the best word to describe it. It wasn't terribly painful, per se, but it just felt empty. Could have been so much better.
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