Billy Club

Wow I struggled with whether to go with a 5 or a 6 rating on this. Ultimately I decided to be slightly more generous because "Billy Club" was better than I expected a slasher film to be and the production values were quite good for low budget.

I was leaning towards the 5, however, because the characters were a special kind of dumb and it was frighteningly easy to figure out who the killer was. Starting with, like, the title?

Anyway, "Billy Club" is about a guy dressed as an umpire who wields a Swiss Army knife bat as his weapon of choice to kill off the now-grown kids who left him for dead after a punishment gone wrong after he blew a baseball game.

The good: Production values were impressive considering the budget. They made it look every bit as dollar-heavy as Jason or Freddy. The cinematography was excellent, even nighttime and inside scenes were clear and the audio was well maintained without me having to touch my remote once. The acting wasn't Oscar-worthy, but impressive considering I've never heard of anyone except for Mark Metcalf, who was in a brief flashback. The score was effective and appropriate, and the pacing was at a good clip and kept the film from getting too dull.

The bad: The script struggled to keep up with any common sense. Perhaps because they show their hand right off the bat (ba-dum-bum), working around so many plot holes became a minefield. As mentioned before, the dumb moves made by the characters were mind boggling. Of course, you expect stupidity in slasher films, so maybe I'm being too harsh. Then there's the also-expected Worst. Police. Ever. They're there, too. The explanation at the end seemed to take way too long, and the last scene concluded with a thud.

I don't generally care for slasher films, but I gave this one a chance because it had a higher than usual rating and instead of a suspicious overabundance of 10s, the reviews were more reasonable and informative. So if you're the same, maybe give it a shot. It's not a flash of brilliance, but considering the genre, it's not bad.

The idea sounds idiotic. A killer dressed up in baseball catcher's gear? Killing people with a bat? C'mon! One may fully expect to hate every dumb minute of BILLY CLUB.

And yet...

Back in 1981, in a small town in Wisconsin, two little league baseball players and their coach are slaughtered by young Billy Haskins, who is arrested and sent to a mental institution.

Fifteen years later, someone dressed as a catcher is murdering people. Has Billy returned to... catch up?

Meanwhile, four former teammates gather at a remote cabin to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of the tragic event. Not-so surprisingly, they soon cross paths with the world's most homicidal catcher!

Mass carnage abounds.

Filled with sympathetic characters, humor, and retro-style, late 1970's-80's slasher ambiance, BILLY CLUB is a well-constructed, low-budget film that delivers the gushy goods!

BEST SCENE: a guy unknowingly eats about a pound of "magic" mushrooms, only to be chased through the now-psychedelic forest by the maniac!

Both harrowing and hilarious, the aforementioned scene illustrates the care that went into making this movie.

Highly rrecommended for the horror / slasher enthusiast...

Not a great slasher movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it has enough different and unique elements to make it a worthwhile watch. None of the characters are very likable and some are downright monsters, but it's reasonably well shot for a low budget movie and I liked that it focused on adults and not teenagers.

Firstly I must say that I thought that this movie was excellent and makes me wonder why I didn't hear about this sooner than I did. For a start for an independent feature it looks so stylish and has excellent production values that it looks just like a big budget Hollywood feature. So for a start well done to the directors and writers Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer for making something that pleases horror/slasher fans such as me.

The plot itself isn't anything original but that doesn't matter as long as it's interesting and engaging enough for the viewer to keep interested all the way through. Here we get a group of old friends reuniting from their childhood days of being in a little league team, where their coach and some of their teammates were murdered by a boy named Billy who got sent to an insane asylum. But now somebody has been hunting down and killing the remaining members of that team, could it be Billy back for revenge, who knows.

To be honest I don't think that I've seen that many baseball themed slashers (the only one that comes to mind was 1998's "The Catcher") which I don't really remember all that well. But this comes as a really strong entry with a decent cast, namely from the 4 main leads were really strong and likable and I liked how the first half developed them, and then the 2nd half of the movie that's where things really take off, I really liked the homage scene where it showed the killer creating his weapon adding nails and a blade to his baseball bat, which was really cool and effective. Then of course the kills which were gory and well handled, and also left me wanting more and even the mystery surrounding the killer was again mind blowing and does keep the viewer guessing until the very end.

All in all "Billy Club" is a definite must see for any horror/slasher fans, it has a good story, engaging characters and gory kills which is basically everything you need and want in a movie of this genre.

Impressively fair slasher.

Can someone tell me if this was inspired by another film with a similar plot?

There was another indie slasher that began with a group of cruel kids on a baseball field who teased another youngster. When the boy attempted to catch a fly ball hit out of the field, he was struck by a car. The movie (that looks similar to this one) is about these same cruel kids who are all grown up years later and are reunited at a bed and breakfast cabin and begin receiving strange threats from a mystery man who stalks them. Very scary and intensifying indie Thriller with a similar plot to "Billy Club".

The problem with this film is that it's scarce. I don't remember if it was part of a Horror Anthology or actual indie movie that possibly inspired Billy Club.

Can anyone remember this scarce film?