The Barge People (2018)

I saw this one pop up on Shudder with a lot of positive buzz, so I thought I’d check it out. The movie appears to be a British version of Wrong Turn with some mutant cannibals lurking around the canals of rural England. I could be down for that.

The movie kicks off with a text that lets us know that people have been mysteriously disappearing along a particular stretch of canals for the last ten years. Then we get to see a woman crawling around a tunnel watching a monster/mutant drag a body away. She is then quickly dispatched offscreen. Then we see a guy jogging who stumbles upon someone lying on the ground. I think it might be the lady that we just saw get killed but I’m not sure. He gets killed by someone or something sneaking up on him. So, two kills that may or may not be related and no explanation. I’m confused.

We are then introduced to a couple of sisters named Kat and Jade. They have brought their boyfriends along on a long weekend cruising the canals on a rented barge. Mark is Kat’s boyfriend and is a decent dude while Ben, Jade’s significant other, is your typical douche bag businessman. Yeah, he is so dead. So, they head out on their trip, have a run in with some locals, find a weird pub, and get attacked by mutants. Bodies pile up, twists are revealed, and generally you get about what you would expect from a movie like this.

This is a by the numbers fish out of water backwoods murder flick. It has that Wrong Turn hillbilly cannibal vibe that itself was a copy of movies like The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now let me be very clear here that The Barge People never rises to the quality of the movies that I mentioned above, but it does fit into that genre. As characters are introduced, I could call who was going to live and die right away, with one exception that I will talk about later. The filmmakers didn’t try and reinvent the wheel with this one and I’m okay with that. Not everything needs to be art and sometimes sitting down with a comfortable and predictable movie makes for a good time. That is of course if it is executed well and here is where I have a couple of issues.

Our characters

The couple of kills at the very beginning are confusing and feel tacked on. I’m thinking that they might have been added when someone either looked at the finished film, while editing, or during the script writing process. I say this because other than those kills nothing much happens for the first twenty-five or so minutes of a movie that is only sixty-eight minutes long. We get a lot of talking, drinking, and steering the barge. You also get to see how locks work and have an extended scene in the pub where everyone says how gross it is and still tries to order food.

I’m thinking that this is done to establish the characters but after all that time we get asshole local guy and girl, rude douche bag boyfriend, sister who is totally going to die, weak boyfriend, and final girl. Seriously I keep having to refer to my notes to remember their names. These characters are paper thin with zero development. This is something else that I’m okay with… as long as you don’t spend a third of your movie trying to give character backgrounds before the good stuff starts. I’d have to say that this is a huge failure.

Mutants look amazing

I also have to talk about the editing. Basically, it is terrible. I’m going to point out one sequence where Mark has to pee, but Ben is preening himself in the mirror and won’t come out for fifteen minutes because… reasons. So, Mark goes out into the woods to water the plants. He is being followed or watched by something. The next time we see him he is fishing and having a chat with Ben while fishing just in time for random science guy to stop by and tell them that the water is filled with bad stuff that killed all the fish. No connecting scene, no dialogue to bridge the gap, nothing. That is just bad editing. This is one example of many that bugged me as I was watching The Barge People.

My criticisms so far have been more or less objective. This final one is kind of a personal thing that bugs me. I’m not a huge fan of bleak endings though one of my favorite movies is Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. When done right and if they serve the story, I can be okay with it. Other English horror like Amicus’ The Skull, The Wicker Man, and more recently The Decent have all done this fairly well. Here the ending doesn’t seem to fit the movie and that bugged me. And then they double down with another pet peeve of mine and give us a bleak non-ending that only hints at something bad happening to our survivor. It almost feels like they couldn’t commit to the finale anyway so why hint at the worst outcome at all?

It gets bloody

Now it isn’t all bad. When the action starts and the mutants show up to attack our characters things get bonkers and a bit more fun. Multiple throats get slashed, an arm gets lopped off, an axe gets planted in a chest, and someone gets hacked to death with a cleaver. While these kills aren’t terribly explicit, I give the filmmakers huge props in that they tried to do all of it with practical effects work. Blood and other bodily fluids are sprayed all over the place which put a huge smile on my face. It was awesome to see a movie not take the easy route of CGI and instead put the work into going with old school effects.

My absolute favorite thing about The Barge People has to be the creature design. Again, this is practical effects work and is brought to the screen with latex. We get not one but four unique creatures with different sculpts so they actually look like four different creatures. Between the excellent makeup and the actor’s performances underneath it these are really cool mutants that I loved. I’d put these creatures up against anything that I’ve seen in the last five or ten years.

Clearly, I have issues with The Barge People. I think it is a flawed movie and that anyone reading this review thinking about watching it needs to know the issues I have with it. But there is something here that I do like. The creatures, how nuts the last two thirds of the flick gets, the practical effects work, and yes the gooey bits spraying everywhere makes it worth a watch. So, despite my issues I’m going to recommend everyone give it a watch. There is something cool here and I can’t wait to check out what the director and writer do next.

 

© Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Splatter Farm (1987)

Recently I’ve been feeling more than a little bit nostalgic. That combined with cleaning out an old storage locker had me digging thru some boxes of DVDs to see if they were worthy of keeping or if it was time to rehome them. One of those discs was the Camp Motion Pictures release of Splatter Farm. I still remember the old VHS box from the video store days and just seeing it put a smile on my face. Realizing that I hadn’t watched it since I first got this DVD maybe fifteen years ago, I thought it was about time to dive back in.

Our directors, twin brothers John and Mark Polonia, portray twin brothers Joseph and Alan. The pair are headed to their Aunt Lacey’s farm for their summer vacation because she is a lonely old woman. Really that seems to be the only reason for the trip. Also at the farm is handyman Jeremy, who we first meet as he is cutting up and eating bodies in the barn. Like people bodies so that is weird. Things get even weirder as we watch the brothers wander around after arriving. They find more body parts, one of the brothers is drugged and bedded by his Aunt (she was lonely…), and poop play happens. The Polonia brothers hold nothing back in this one my friends. We get some resolution and the story ends, though rather bleakly.  

I like the Polonia Brothers, just Mark now as John passed away very young, but was surprised by this movie. Again, I had seen Splatter Farm before but had forgotten about the content. While their later films are a bit more in the silly creature feature low budget vein this one plays like an exploitation movie. This flick revels in going places that normally you would never see. Perhaps this is a result of filmmakers who were in their late teens when shooting it? I’ve already mentioned the incestuous Aunt Lacey and the poop gag, but there is more. They have a subplot with the crazy handyman Jeremy actually being the son of Aunt Lacey by her brother! Yep we get even more incest… There is a bit of necrophilia as well when Jeremy decides to get “frisky” with the decapitated head of one of his victims. Are you getting the vibe that Splatter Farm is laying down?

The movie was shot on VHS with a consumer grade camera so there are some quality issues. There are some strange visual issues with halos around the characters and odd streaks of light that fans of shot on video will recognize. This is a quirk of the technology that gives these movies a unique visual look. The technology also doesn’t do well with interiors or night shots unless you really know how to light a scene specifically for video. Being inexperienced filmmakers, this movie ends up being very dark and hard to follow at times, though they are smart and limit those scenes by shooting mostly in the day. I was impressed with how they framed scenes and set up their shots. For as young as they were, they had a good eye.

For no budget the special effects work in Splatter Farm is decent. There aren’t a lot of kills, but we do get an axe to the head, a gunshot, and some dismemberment/disemboweling. The work is a bit on the cheesy side and is clearly latex, but for an eighties low budget production this is acceptable and even expected. There is a sense of joy in the effects work that I think you can only get with filmmakers that are having fun and pushing past the limitations imposed on them by budget and experience. I dig that. 

Things are about to get weird!

If I were to sum up the Polonia Brothers career to this point it would be “just go for it”. The story is twisted, the gore is plentiful, and while rough the acting is still fun in a low budget we don’t know what the heck we are doing sort of way. This is much different from what the other movies they would later make and continue to make. They never dipped back into this level of exploitation weirdness, but that is okay. I’m not sure if that would be sustainable and even something that an older more mature filmmaker would want to do.

I really like Splatter Farm. This might not be the best place to jump into the Polonia Brothers catalog since it is so different from the rest. But if you are interested in the weirdness of shot on video eighties flicks then here is a good place to start. Either way I think you should eventually get around to watching this one. I highly recommend it.

Ó Copyright 2020 John Shatzer

Gravy (2015)

I must be falling down on the job here folks. Psych was one of my favorite television shows and its star, James Roday, is one of my favorite actors. Seriously I loved that show! Apparently, he directed a horror comedy about cannibalism, and I didn’t notice. Yeah it is just now getting a wide release, but still how did I miss that?

Brothers Anson and Stef have a family tradition. Every Halloween they trap, torture, and eat a group of people. This year they have targeted a Mexican Restaurant and the staff. Along for the ride is Stef’s new girlfriend Mimi, who they picked up the previous year when instead of a victim she became a participant. The trio weld the doors closed and take everyone hostage before their games start. Much blood is spilled, and flesh eaten before we get to the bloody and sort of funny end.

This movie is everything that I wanted it to be. The dialogue is cleverly written and each of the characters is given a chance to shine. Everyone has their moment where they get to deliver the punchline of a joke. Normally every genre movie like this has characters that are tossed in just to up the body count, but here the cast is used really well. I found myself liking the soon to be victims which meant that each death is sort of sad… and maybe just a little bit funny. The humor in Gravy is twisted and I loved it. I’ll give you an example. The restaurant has a French Chef that is forced to cook his friends for the cannibals and instead of being horrified he does his best to make sure they taste good, so that their deaths mean something! That is the kind of wacky mayhem that you can expect. I could point out more examples, but I don’t want to ruin the fun.

The kills have an old school vibe to them

As excited as I was to see Roday’s take on a horror comedy (he also co-wrote the script) when I saw who did the special effects work, I was hopping out of my seat in anticipation. Literally I did and it annoyed my wife terribly. Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero! Two thirds of KNB did the gore and it shows. First it is all practical work and if you have spent any time at all here at Crappy Movie Reviews you know how I feel about that. Nothing like actual latex to spice things up. And oh boy does it get spicy here. Necks are torn out, a face has a close encounter with an arrow, noggins end up in ceiling fans, bottles are put to good use, and a head splits like a ripe melon on some pavement. Needless to say, the blood flows freely and I haven’t even touched on what happens in the kitchen! If you like gore you won’t be disappointed with Gravy.

Again, I could keep going on about the things I dig about Gravy, but that might spoil it and I really don’t want to do that. I haven’t had this much fun with a movie in a long time. This fits in nicely with all the crazy flicks I used to rent on VHS back in the day. Gore, funny dialogue, pretty girls… it has it all. I’m still kicking myself that it took me four damn years to realize the movie existed. I highly recommend Gravy and suggest you find yourself a copy right away. This is the kind of flick that I’m definitely going to revisit, so a purchase is the right way to go.

© Copyright 2020 John Shatzer

Street Team Massacre (2007)

I don’t trust energy drinks. When I heard of a movie that had them as the cause of a crazies/zombie outbreak I knew I had to watch it. The action starts with some scientists getting customer feedback on their latest product. The test subject seems to enjoy the mango goodness of his beverage, but then gets a little violent. Basically, he murders everyone in sight. Years later we are introduced to the street team of Eco-Elixir. The crew heads out only to be one upped by their bitter rivals, Jock Juice. Defeated they head back to headquarters to find out that management is ready to pull the plug on the company. They only have one more chance.

Finding a Jamboree to attend the Eco-Elixir crew loads up the van and heads out. But there is a mole on their crew, someone who is feeding all their secrets to the Jock Juice creeps. In an effort to sabotage the event the Eco-Elixir is swapped out with some expired product. A familiar mango flavored product. Yep the hippie dippy Jamboree attendees are about to go crazy/zombie on everyone! Good times ensue.

I watch a lot of low budget horror movies. This doesn’t even reach that level of low budget. They only spent fifteen hundred dollars on Street Team Massacre and still managed to make it fun. The story is goofy and there isn’t much in the way of production values. I was expecting that, so it didn’t bother me too much. What I never saw coming was how well written the script is. I’ve said again and again when reviewing low budget movies that you have no control over most things without money, but you can make sure that you have a story you can afford to shoot and a decent script. They have both.

The story is simple and requires just a couple locations. The big finale takes place at Sloppy Poppy’s grand pappy’s “rape” farm, which is a collection of old buildings in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know if they wrote the script with the location in mind or if they just got lucky. But it fits and gave them everything they needed. Moving onto the script the dialogue in Street Team Massacre is excellent. The characters have some funny lines, especially Sloppy Poppy, and the cast of unknowns do a great job with the timing. Comedy isn’t easy, and they nail it. You get the requisite cameo from Lloyd Kauffman, who is actually sort of great here. There is also a random Roddy Piper appearance that was cool.

The gore is very basic. I suppose some viewers might be disappointed with it, but they had no money. Personally, I think that the tricks that they used were fine. There is some basic gut munching, a dude loses his eyes, and some people are shot. All of it simple and cheesy as hell. Instead of applying complicated makeup to the zombies/crazies they just glue a unibrow on them. I have different standards for a flick like Street Team Massacre and was satisfied with what they put on the screen. Be warned if you aren’t a fan of low or micro budget movies then Street Team Massacre isn’t for you. I watch a lot of these and this is one of the better you will find. I highly recommend it. The link at the top of this review will take you to YouTube where you can watch the movie. What are you waiting for?

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer