5/10
Let me get this straight
17 January 2007
A killer is going around in an army camouflage jumpsuit slicing up the desirable high school majorettes with their trusty knife and leaving their bodies immerse in water. Lt. Roland Martell is put onto the case with the help of the local sheriff, but the body count is rising. There are some punk bikers and their leader is a prime suspect, but could it be the perverted school janitor or maybe his deceiving mother who plans to take over the inheritances of the old lady she's looking after.

What in the name?! This is one extremely patchwork film that has so much going on in its heavily plotted premise that it feels like everything has been chucked into a blender. Yummy camp that's frightening for all the wrong reasons. I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief in how ridiculously stupid it gets! What starts off as your conventional copy and paste high school slasher turns into an embarrassing revenge action story. Huh? Where did that come from? We watch one of the characters go "Rambo" on us. It's raining down gunfire and unnecessary explosions. Pure anarchy! These sudden incomprehensible shifts in the fitful story truly made it one unpredictable smörgåsbord of gratuitous 80s cheese. The slasher element is poorly done, but sticks to the main gruel. Vixens who get their clothes off when they can. A POV shot with heavy breathing to inform us it's the killer. Bloody murders (although they are mostly the same old repetitive kills; knife to the throat routine) on "unexpected" victims. And red herrings around each corner. The banal nature of this segment suddenly turned moronic in falling by the wayside. The a-wire action is plain bizarre, and rather guilty entertainment. A lot people bite the dust and there are unexpected surprises in who does too. Sounds complicated… well no, just messy and padded out.

Some of the key players in Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" are who to thank for this shamble. The premise is taken from writer John Russo's own novel and the script he dragged off it is completely insipid and dank across the board. Is the novel that bad? The amateurishly leaden acting makes matters even worse and there's no real central figure rounding it off. The ladies in the picture look nice, but do little else. Bill Hinzman (zombie in the graveyard in the opening scene of "Night of the Living Dead") is in the director's chair, but you wouldn't know it. One or two decent stalk scenes are there, but there wasn't much control and direction seemed quite non-existent. Being plastered with a low budget immensely brings it down and leaves a lot to be desired. The off-kilter story just didn't make too much sense or did the other pointlessly out-of-left-field sub-plots to the bigger picture. It feels fairly longer than it actually is and this erratic mood swings enhanced it even more. A tacky one-note music score is especially jerky and the stale camera-work only hurts your eyes. Mindlessly idiotic and mundane accurately sums up the hack-eyed presentation and feeble production.

This z-grade stinker entertains in its unintentional wackiness, but you can find yourself doing it tough in a glut of unbearable shoddiness. Be afraid… be very afraid.
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