Brutal Massacre: A Comedy

Most movies I've seen about making a movie aren't very good, but this one bucks the system. It's about a director who created one hit movie. After a series of bad movies he is basically given one more chance to create a movie that people want to watch. He and his film crew head to a small town to film his latest movie.

The director is just awful. He hires a cast of kooky film makers and actors. Everything that could possible go wrong while making a movie goes wrong in this movie. The acting is good. The characters are completely clueless.

It's a low budget movie, but is still well done. I barely even noticed the lack of big effects. I just came across this movie and didn't think much of it, but after watching it, I am very glad that I did.

Harry Pandarecki has made some good films... well, maybe one. And a slew of really, really bad ones. With funding getting more difficult to procure, we follow him on his one last chance for greatness. This mockumentary, following the film "Brutal Massacre" from scouting to filming to completion, is somewhere between horror and comedy, really missing the point of either.

Fangoria magazine called this the "Spinal Tap" of horror films. And, sure, there are some parallels. But "Spinal Tap" was witty and just plain funny, whereas this film strains to get a good joke across. With Fangoria's Tony Timpone featured in the film, as well as the magazine, it's no surprise they'd endorse this one. There's even a 40% coupon for a subscription in the box. Thanks, Tony, but you keep shilling for failures and what little credibility you have left will be lost.

I saw a twenty minute preview of this film presented by Ellen Sandweiss and Brian O'Halloran. I spoke with both of them later that night while drinking some tasty beers, and they're some very friendly cats. But, sadly, the only part of the preview that was funny was Gunnar Hansen, and this is an accurate description of the movie. Five minutes of laughs, ninety minutes of boredom. If it weren't for all the topless scenes, I don't know if I would have made it through the film on my first try without intestinal distress.

I look forward to meeting O'Halloran again. As I say, he's a cool cat and has made some great films. This is not one of them. Even the lines he ad-libbed (the Amazon jungle rant, for example) just weren't all that clever (and I don't blame him for this... he shouldn't have to pick up the slack of the actual writers) and his talents were wasted on this production. It was great to see Sandweiss, Hansen, Ken Foree... Mick Garris shows up briefly. So they knew what sort of genre people to get the attention of horror fans. Unfortunately, the writer and director (Stevan Mena, "Malevolence") just didn't have the skills to make this what it could have been. For a horror mockumentary, see "Behind the Mask" and leave this one for a last resort.

I really wanted to like this movie and watched all the way through thinking it had to get better. Don't get me wrong, it's not the worst flick ever but it never lives up to it's potential. The premise is good, the cast is great (I was especially pumped to witness the return of David Naughton) and, God love 'em, you can tell everyone tried their best. It just falls short over and over again. "Brutal Massacre" should serve as a constant reminder to filmmakers that only Christopher Guest can do Christopher Guest movies and, despite the fact he makes it look easy, you should probably just forget trying to do the same. Naughton and Brian O'Halloran are fantastic in this and they should be seen more often...they are the reason this gets 4 stars from me. If you're going to have the "Spinal Tap" of horror I suspect you might want the guy who made "Spinal Tap" to helm it...just thinking out loud there.

This is like the Bowfinger for horror movies. A has-been horror director who still has followers because of his early "hits" like I'll Take the Ring Back and the Finger Too, is directing his latest project, Brutal Massacre. Lo and behold! A documentary is being made at the same time. Not only is the script of Brutal Massacre iffy but the crew and cast are IFFY. This is funny and silly and topical, a perfect movie for covid lockdown here in 2020.

I want to recommend this movie, the cast have been in some great movies and someone clearly laboured over the script. But in the end it just doesn't deliver enough in any department to truly be all that likable.

The story is about the making of a horror movie and the crew have some problems...That is it. This is the opposite of Smothered, a horror movie starring horror icons where there is no clear direction. Here it is all about the director, but the character work is lacking. Both are trying to explore and satirise aspects of the horror film industry, however in this case the film contains no actual horror but is a straight comedy. While the 'A Comedy' is in the title it is still surprising that a film where the main title is 'Brutal Massacre', there is no horror whatsoever. I was sitting there expecting some kind of horror shenanigans to materialise, but they never do. It's like going into Gareth Edwards' Monsters and not knowing it is a slow art piece more about aesthetics than actual monster mayhem, it makes it hard to enjoy the movie for what it is.

So to be clear, this is a straight mockumentary comedy about low budget horror. It has some good ideas and some kind of funny moments and observations but overall falls flat since most of these are either obvious or have already been done. What's more you never really care about any of the characters all that much and that hurts this film even more than had it been a straight horror, at least in that case there would have been cool deaths to enjoy. There is just too little to root for or care about, and the jokes aren't funny enough to make up for that. It is a 'meh' all-round unfortunately.