The Bunnyman Massacre

It wasn't possible to be worse. So Bunnyman heard your complaints and this time he starts off by running amok on a school bus, quickly followed by some pointless nudity. My favorite thing in the movie is that they went out of their way to mention that he got stabbed in the neck in the first movie. If they hadn't done that it would be easy to argue that this movie was possibly a reboot, not a sequel. But anyway, they never explained anything about Bunnyman in the first movie and this one just makes it more confusing. So now he just has another guy he's always with. Bunnyman has more friends than me. The new guy tries to explain that the people from the first movie were Bunnyman's family and I think this new guy is his brother. They also changed his head from the Red Skull look to a more Darth Vader-ish thing. They show a tiny bit of gore this time, so that's something. Watch at your own risk.

Carl Lindbergh is back with "The Bunnyman Massacre" (2014), his second entry in his "Bunnyman" franchise; and I understand that a third one is in the works. This one is a low budget fusion of "Motel Hell" (1980) and "Kiss & Tell" (1997); and yet another homage to the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974). Unfortunately, none of the female cast is remotely in the sexploitation class of "Motel Hell's" Monique St. Pierre or "Kiss & Tells" Heather Graham – in other words no viewer will be at the edge of his seat hoping to see any of them take off their tops.

Unlike Pamela Gidley's murderous "Beta Carotene" character in "Kiss & Tell", this bunny is (once again) in an actual rabbit costume with a happy face, the kind of costume commonly seen at a community Easter Egg Hunt. The incongruity gives Lindbergh tons of visual juxtapostioning opportunities, the inspiration and entire basis for the "Bunnyman" franchise.

Lindbergh seems to have taken some time to write a very humorous 26-minute black comedy segment, pitched it to some financial backers, and then shot the first one fourth of his film. During this segment the title character breaks movie conventions by attacking a school bus of children on a rural road and then eats dinner with his associate Joe. We learn (during a Mad Hatter inspired dinner scene) that Bunnyman's rage comes from his frustration at being required to stay a vegetarian, because bunnies don't eat meat.

After 26 minutes you are convinced that Lindbergh has a winner here, with it shaping up into the most original black comedy treatment the genre has ever seen. All he has to do is maintain the tension and suspense, which he could easily do by alternating quick kills and unexpected escapes, using a little misdirection to make it impossible for viewers to sort out targets from non-targets.

But by the 30 minute mark you realize that he has already shot his bolt in the initial segments and has simply cobbled together and tacked on sixty minutes of listless moronic filler to get his film up to feature length. The only exception being an inspired sequence of barrel rolling – the best of which involves emptying the barrel for reuse.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This movie is not unique in the slightest. It gives off vibes of the Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (who would've guessed?) and literally any other slasher you could think of. The plot is all over the place, the kills are uncreative and unnecessarily gory for shock value, and nothing makes any sense. This is what the creative team was going for, I say good job. Bad.

I was expecting something a lot worse than this, so guess cause I had low expectations, it managed to make somewhat of an impression on me.

They did build some character depth, showed some personalities here, still, the movie is not for everyone. A lot of talking, many unnecessary scenes, overall to be honest, I got bored. So many movies like this one, when they can't create a proper plot therefore, lets focus on some blood, tits and harsh language, maybe we can get away with it. I'm so done with such productions, no tension, no scares, nothing new, but they try to hit the horror scene for the sake of what? Wasting money, time and people's patience!

Nothing good came out of this one, so I will be a tad bit aggressive on it: The Bunnyman Massacre is a very weak attempt, where almost nothing happens, a few bullets, a chainsaw and a bunny costume. Nothing interesting, nada, zero, below zero actually. Go around this one and thank me later!

Cheers!

Have an appreciation for horror with shades of thriller, slasher can be done well as well. So despite hearing a lot of negativity, 'The Bunnyman Massacre's' premise did really intrigue. Plus the cover was an attention-grabbing one. Really wanted to like it and for it to not be another waste of decent potential.

Watching it, unfortunately 'The Bunnyman Massacre' turned out to be exactly that...a waste of decent potential and with exactly the same flaws as the first 'Bunnyman'. Not how to execute an intriguing idea. It's not irredeemably awful by any stretch, there is one good thing. Sadly eclipsed by the numerous things 'The Bunnyman Massacre' gets catastrophically wrong. Some unintentional humour that was just cheesy and irritating, the attempts at seriousness felt misplaced and the incoherence of the editing and the dialogue make it very difficult to take it seriously and the horror elements were predictable, not scary and too tame, no matter how much gratuitous blood effects it threw in.

Lets get the good things out of the way first. The best thing about 'The Bunnyman Massacre' is the villain's look, it is great. So cool and menacing, not goofy at all.

Uniformly the acting ranges from very bad to truly terrible, lots of histrionics and an equal amount of phoning in. Their cringe-worthy, unintentionally silly dialogue (one deserves a prize if they succeed in not bursting out laughing when they're not meant to, that is a challenge), annoying characters with stupid and illogical decision-making and behaviours and indifferent direction gave them no favours.

Neither did the story, which is paper thin and much of it doesn't make any sense, with scenes that bear no relevance. There is no tension or suspense here, no surprises, no creativity, no wit and the only thing that is scary is the look of the villain and the scare factor ends there. The kills are un-creative, instead of biting the nails one is shrugging their shoulders, and the whole horror atmosphere feels both tame and overdone (so much gratuity here) and leans towards being dumb.

'The Bunnyman Massacre' is an eyesore visually. With the lighting and camera work, it seemed to striving for the showing off or experimenting with supposedly arty to them feel but instead it comes off amateurish and nauseating. The editing is incoherent. Cannot remember the music, other than its over-bearing intrusiveness.

Overall, not irredeemable but very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox