Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove

I'm a huge horror fan & can be pretty forgiving at times when the film has next to no budget, but tries its best to work with what its got. Some have managed to pull it off quite well (Ex. Hide & Creep (2004)). This movie is simply HORRIBLE...just HORRIBLE. The acting is non existent, the pacing has been stretched out to extremely BORING levels to flesh out what needed to be a full-length "film" (if you can call it that) & Jolly Roger's makeup is just laughable. Maybe the only redeeming quality are the hot STRIPPERS...but even a nice rack couldn't save this turkey! I regrettably watched this on a trip to Miami & wanted to gouge my own eyes out from how BAD it was! Complete Garbage! I implore you to stay FAR AWAY!

This is another one of those in-betweeners--similar to Kali: Tears of a Clown or whatever the hell the name of that film was . . . oh, yeah--after working up the energy to click a couple times, I see the proper name of that one was just Tears of Kali. An in-betweener is a film that's not low-budget-crappy enough to be directed by John Specht, but no major studio put 20 million dollars into this puppy, either, so you can't expect something as slick as, say, I Know What You Did Last Summer. In fact, IMDb is telling me that Jolly Roger was made for a mere 500 grand. For that amount of money, and considering how "hiss" poor this could have been if Sub Rosa would have backed it instead, this isn't a half bad film.

In fact, I popped it into my DVD player with the anxiety that it was going to one of those shot-on-a-99-dollar-DXG-video-camera messes where I can't hear any of the dialogue unless I crank up my stereo to 10 and put on a pair of headphones, but director Gary Jones and crew went to pains to ensure that this back-from-the-dead avenging Pirate slasher flick looks and plays relatively professional. That's not to say that you can't tell that this is a low budget indie: the acting can be rougher than the Pennsylvania leg of the Appalachian Trail; you'll swear that at least one actor had to be a producer or closely related to a producer; the music has a generic porno film quality; there are a number of weird jumps in the narrative where it seems like a reel of film or at least a couple script pages must have been lost but they just didn't think it was that important; it's often difficult to tell if the script was supposed to be written as more of a comedy--you'll certainly be laughing at some dialogue and events--like the ridiculous cop/coroner(?) and the fact that one protagonist figures that the best way to record a list of names off of carved stone with a paper and pencil is to do a rubbing.

But despite all of those blemishes, despite the fact that the plot is obviously cribbed a bit from The Fog and the villain was designed to cash in on the mega-success of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films, I found myself enjoying Jolly Roger more often than not, and it's not just because of the traditional slasher film move of showing plenty of breastages--although that certainly didn't hurt.

The title character is a nice, kinda campy idea for a new slasher villain. Jones and co-writer Jeff Miller wrote a simple but captivating and even occasionally suspenseful story where they do a decent job of weaving together a few different threads. Jones' timing is pretty good--the film has a nice flow aside from those few weird narrative jumps. Although some of the acting is rough, some is not bad at all. They found great locations. They made the smart move of putting a lot of the money they had into cameras, film, sound and effects.

I know some people said that the effects in the film looked cheap, and occasionally, they do look fake--for example, the Jolly Roger character clearly has a mask on with black makeup around his eye--but for this budget level, the effects are pretty incredible. There are decapitated heads galore, for example, which are modeled just as well as any 100 million dollar film. The actual scenes of violence--often leading up to those fake heads--are slightly rougher, but they're not at all bad. Rough technical problems are often cleverly shot around, and you'll never EVER see effects even a quarter as good in a Sub Rosa film unless they have a serious change of production philosophy and probably an influx of inheritance money from some long lost member of the Stanze clan. Even the Jolly Roger character, despite the obvious mask, isn't at all bad. The design of the character is great overall, and I actually prefer that Jones didn't just shoot his face in darkness all the time--a viewer should be able to use some imagination.

Don't pass this one up just because it's not perfect--just don't expect anything high gloss, and watch it with a sense of humor--there are occasional moments of enjoyable, sublime absurdity for those of you like me who enjoy that kind of thing. I'd love to see what Jones and his collaborators could do with a Jolly Roger sequel if they had at least 10 times the budget and maybe some input from Frank Henenlotter.

Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove isn't without its redeeming qualities. The strip scenes are amusing, Kristina Korn is easy on the eyes and likable and, although his character is made too much of a wimp at times, the talented Rhett Giles does give a decent performance. Unfortunately, that's the only praise I can give. It is a cheap-looking film, though I've seen cheaper, with dull lighting, very annoyingly slipshod photography and special effects that are so fake and lacking in any finesse or technical value. The music is obvious, unfitting and has nothing memorable. Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove also has some of the most sophomoric dialogue I've heard in recent memory, the story holds no surprises, as we have seen it all before and executed far better, has no atmosphere or nail-biting suspense and is eye-rollingly ridiculous at times too. Some of the scenes are clearly repetitive of others in the film, but clumsily disguised to not make it look so. There are no likable characters, again I don't mind stereotypes and clichés as long as they are written well and interestingly, which Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove failed to do. Jolly Roger is the one character you sort of root for, though Korn does decently with really bad material, the others are obnoxious in the worst sense. There are many killings, but they offer no genuine sense of horror, they're bloody but crude-looking and unoriginal and they are often very randomly placed. The acting is generally awful, Tom Nagel is bland while everybody else, especially in the scene where the Mayor talks to the kids about LeChuck, overacts to the point of utter embarrassment. Korn and Giles are the only two exceptions. All in all, not terrible or the worst movie ever, but it is a good idea to skip this one. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Ah, low budget horror like everyone knows...most times it's very awful and sometimes...it's really great. Jolly Roger, despite a dumb title is actually a pretty great little film. For real it was everything I was hoping it would be after being burnt one time before on an Asylum production (the same company that made Jolly Roger) with Scarecrow Slayer which I was disappointed with. Now back to this film, I have to really give it up to the director of this flick, Gary Jones, for really making this film look like a real film(with lots of cool camera movements). Most Direct to Video films don't have that since they're all shot on digital now and so most directors use the point an shoot but rarely do you get a sense of movement to the film. So I was really feeling the camera movements which gave this film a certain edge above the rest of the DtV films I've seen. Now I have to say this is one fun movie, I was just loving every moment of this flick. It's fun, gory and pretty well made. The film gets almost everything right right from the start by showing killing and boobs just in the opening minutes. That's always a plus in my book. The script is really quite good and has a pretty good story behind it. Did I see the future plot lines coming from a mile away? Of course but who cares...I had a blast getting there anyway. Man, I just really enjoyed this flick. Everything about it screamed I know what the fans want to see so we're going to give it to them...and that really makes me happy. This film knew everything that was expected and gave us more...great over the top gore, nudity and really cool deaths. Is this film gonna the most well regarded horror flick ever? No, but it does know what it is and what it's not. It's a great little horror film with a pretty story. The acting...almost everyone is right on except for the Woman who played the Mayor...god, she couldn't act for crap..but she dies so all was forgiven. The two leads, Tom Nagel and Kristina Korn, were great except for Tom who had a lot of off moments in this film were it looked like he was "acting". Kristina was great, I just loved her. She handled her part really well and I actually liked her character in a certain way ,that I've never seen a low budget horror film female lead, she played her kinda of scared, kinda weak, and always worried. She was the real surprise of the movie, I actually believed that she could be a real person while Tom I feel, couldn't keep up with her which is kind of sad because I feel it would have really made this flick even better. Another small beef was with Jolly Roger himself, I mean he looked cool and all except that I think they should have altered his voice a bit and made it deeper and more eviler. When he first shows up looking all bad ass and stuff you know he's gonna be one cool mother but then he talks and it's like"what was the hell was that?" His voice really doesn't match the look of the Jolly Roger. It's kinda hard to take him seriously as a threat when he speaks like a wimp. But he hardly talks so it's all good.Much Props to Gary Jones again for making an actually well directed, very few bad actor filled fun ride of a horror/ slasher movie. I really liked this flick a lot...I can't wait to start spreading the good word about this film...I was really impressed with it.

My Rating: A Bad Ass flick. Man, this flick has it all and then more. It's a fun blood filled ride with some actually great directing and some solid acting from most of the cast (except for a few) and just plain fun. This is a flick for horror guys like me that know what we want to see and delivers with shining colors. Great show.

My husband rented this DVD and said usually Asylum put out pretty good, low-budge campy movies. I said, "ok, let's watch it." You know, it was pretty good! It was no big epic, movie classic or anything, but for a "B" grade movie I enjoyed it. The casting seemed good, the young actors seemed to fit their parts well. The acting by everyone seemed good (again) and believable. The plot was something different, I would have called the Jolly Roger a serial killer but strangely nobody used that term. He really cut a swath through the town. There was plenty of murder/attacks/scary scenes etc. pretty much evenly distributed through the movie to keep your attention. It had a good flow to it. Like the other reviewer, I agree that the bar scene was a hoot, just trashy enough to be believable and humorous also. I had to laugh out loud at many of the bar scenes. You probably will too. I liked the town where the movie was set, it was kind of gloomy and rainy and dreary for some good pirate atmosphere. All in all it was enjoyable and I actually wouldn't mind watching it at a future date.