Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Charlie's Farm (2014)

"Charlie's Farm" is a very paint-by-numbers 'backwoods slasher' flick. That said, it manages to string itself along with a few decent kill scenes to where I'd label it as passable...

Four backpackers (three Aussies and Tara Reid as the token "Yank"...) are intent on making their way to Charlie's Farm - the notorious site in which a family killers slaughtered and cannibalized a bunch of hikers two decades prior before the towns folk formed an angry mob and killed all but the retarded young son, Charlie. Charlie is still there and built like a brick shithouse with a strong hankering for killing more backpackers.

"Charlie's Farm" suffers from many of the typical cliches found in most slasher movies as well as going WAY too long without much blood around the midway part. The plus-side, though, is that a few of the kills are enjoyable once they start up and Charlie, the killer, is a decent enough antagonist, although he reminded me a lot of the killer from the "Hatchet" movies. Maybe a little TOO much... You also got cameos from Bill Moseley and Kane Hodder - neither of whom are the movies 'driving force' in any way, shape or form but Moseley can usually be counted on as a good wacko. In all, I can't hype this one too much. It's unoriginal as fuck, but watchable enough.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

The Greasy Strangler (2016)

Finally got to checking out "The Greasy Strangler" - a film whose trailer pretty much had me 'sold' within the first two seconds. However, it ended up slipping my mind to ever pick up a copy, plus I had kinda slowed down in my movie watching anyways. So with no further ado, what were my thoughts on this one? Overall, it's a genuinely funny and thoroughly absurd gross-out horror/comedy - one that I can safely say will NOT suit everyone's tastes.

A pot-bellied, middle-age weirdo is living with his obnoxious, grease-obsessed father whom he co-runs a walking tour business revolving around bullshit disco history. As it turns out, the dad is the elusive Greasy Strangler - a maniacal, grease-coated, big-dicked killer who runs around the city at night strangling folks until their eyes pop out (which he usually eats...). When the son meets a girl, a bizarre "love"-triangle develops between the three of them while the son becomes increasingly suspicious that his father is the strangler...

The best way I can think to describe the 'essence' of this film is to think if John Waters made a movie for Troma. Every character is over-the-top scummy and/or retarded as well as physically repulsive; with very few of them shying away from providing a sheer abundance of disgusting nude scenes. And, yeah, I consider these elements POSITIVE in this case. My complaints regarding this one would have to be in that it starts dragging a little after the halfway point, I thought. Like they used up their "A" material for the first half or so, in which case, the last third of the movie started feeling a bit... tiresome for me. Not to say it ends badly (but, who's to say, honestly? This flick is ridiculous all the way through...), though I just can't say that it ended anywhere near as strong as it began. So, those who dig weird, wacky, crude movies - again, along the lines of John Waters' earlier stuff (though nowhere near as 'outrageous' and RAW) - you'll probably get a kick out of "The Greasy Strangler".