Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Cross Bearer (2012, Adam Ahlbrandt)

"Cross Bearer" is a decent au courant slasher flick that doesn't do anything too groundbreaking, but brings on some admissible indie entertainment...

A community of drug-infatuated degenerates is targeted by a religious vagabond disguised by a sheet-wrapped face and armed with a claw hammer. Some lesbian strippers and a mohawked DIY pornographer get mixed up in the bloodbath as they enter a dilapidated building where they hope to make a drug deal for an obnoxious club owner. Little do they realize that the killer is taking care of business and righting some wrongs in the name of Christ.

First off, you're getting a reasonably hefty amount of fake tits and bloody hammer-bashings with this one, so, in that regard, it scored some points with me. I guess what I didn't really go for was the total lack of 'build' or mystification surrounding the killer. He's one of the first faces we see in the movie (maskless) and, from there, he's just sort of a 'prop' that goes around rambling Jesus-freak nonsense and bludgeoning people to death. That's all fine and dandy, though I would've preferred he be given some kind of half-way interesting back-story or, at least, ONE of the characters should've been kinda interesting. The film is just really light on suspense and plot. Too much so, if you asked me. They try to poke fun at this in a overly long scene where the soon-to-be victims have a ridiculous film discussion, one of whom arguing that she prefers trashy slasher films over Kubrick's films... This didn't really 'land'...

But still, it's not a BAD flick. Good amount of practical gore effects and I like the idea of an extremely religious slasher antagonist. You could do a lot worse than "Cross Bearer".

No comments:

Post a Comment