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Overall Rating : 3/10
Directed By : Trent Haaga
Billy Bakshi (Terror Firmer)
Ricardo Gray (Easter Bunny Kill Kill)
Timothy Muskatel (Deadgirl)
Mark Irvingsen (Mammoth)
Supplied By : Vivendi Entertainment
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : January. 11, 2012
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| PLOT A revenge thriller with a comedic edge centering on a seemingly innocent young couple forced by a psychotic stranger to confront their duplicitous past deeds. | ||||
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| THE REVIEW After his car breaks down on the side of the road, Lance Reed inadvertently hitches a ride, with a man with a history....a history with him. Lance soon finds himself in the clutches of the mysterious man, who swears that he was a victim of Lance in the past. Lance who has no recollection of no wrong doing in terms of the man is forced by him to brutally murder his own brother, Bobby, and also endure the crushing news that his wife, Emily, was having an affair with him. The man then proposes a game to Lance, and that is that he stay alive, just as long as he fails to mention anything about the murder of his brother, or the affair. For the next three weeks, Lance finds himself hounded by the Police about his brother's disappearance, as well as struggling with the actions of his wife. But soon Lance finds that this man from his past, just will not give up, when the man shows up again. The two men eventually find themselves engaged in a brutal game of "cat and mouse", a game which begins in Lance losing a couple of fingers. The man hopes that by tying Lance down and removing his limbs, that Lance will own up to what he had done to him. Instead what comes out are long hidden memories of Lance's which are previous crimes he had committed against others. From then on, the man, connects the dots by contacting his victims, thus letting them have their way with poor Lance. CHOP, which marks the directorial debut from TROMA alum Trent Haaga, is a film that I had been curious about ever since Haags debut the film's preliminary poster on his Facebook(one that is far better than the cover art that was chosen, by the way). I am a fan and supporter of Haaga, as I think he is extremely talented, and I loved his previous effort, DEADGIRL(which he wrote), which is why I had sort of hop for this film> But I must be honest when I say that, when the trailer first started showing up online, I was hardly impressed by it. I understood that it was a black comedy, and was to be taken with a grain of salt, but, I just didn't find the humor funny - at least what little I say in the trailer. Which brings me to now, now having seen the film in its entirety. CHOP presents itself as a comedy from the beginning, with it's over the top acting and gore, and it is one that, initially, we are not quite sure of just where the plot will take us. This is a good thing, as when it does go there things remain quite interesting. But it was after awhile, that the humor just got a little too dry for me, and just failed to get any reaction out of me. For the film's 80 some odd minute run time, the film tries its best to maintain a consistent level of humor, unfortunately, but instead it is really "hit and miss", so to speak. When the film is funny, it truly is, but when it isn't it comes off being really weak. So, yes, some of the lines are humorous, and as always Timothy Muskatell is on point, as well as the films star, Billy Bakshi, delivering sometimes as well, but as for as the story itself, it is pretty thin, in a way that is very uneventful. This is especially true for the film's ending, which I found to be totally anticlimactic. The "big" reveal at the end was just too weak to build a story around in my opinion. The directing by Haaga however, I found to be decent for a debut After all, he has been involved in film for years, so stepping in as a Director was probably natural to him. As a fan of Trent Haaga and his work, I just wish that the story for his debut would've offered more. I would have loved to have seen him direct DEADGIRL, as a matter of fact, a film that was a whole lot of fun, and even a bit dark and edge as well. I personally have now watched DEADGIRL numerous times. But as for CHOP, I just didn't enjoy it as much. For a film that is marketed as sort of a gore fest, there just isn't enough of it, and as a comedy...well, truth be told, it just isn't that funny. I have nothing against Trent, or anyone else involved with the project, however, it just turns out that I just didn't enjoy CHOP as much as I initially hoped to. So, to sum it up, I just hoped for a little more in the end at least. The film spends most of it's time building up to the reveal of what the lead character Lance had supposedly done to the film's mysterious "villain-like" character in the past. We are under the assumption that it will be something that warrants the man's vile actions, but unfortunately been this mystery is revealed, in my mind, what we receive is so minor, so juvenile, that it just feels tacked on to the end of the film, making little, to no sense at all. |
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| GORE
METER 4/10 There's an axe stuck in one's head, some gunshot wounds, severed fingers, a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and a good amount of blood strewn about. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 4.5/10 The film's score possesses a wide range of scoring, from suspense and atmosphere to almost something of a techno sort of vibe. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Coming away from CHOP, I know without a doubt, that there will be a fan base for the film. Some will enjoy it and find it funnier than others. When it comes to myself, unfortunately, I happen to be one of the "other" crowd. Don't get me wrong, there is black comedy that I do rather enjoy(like SLEEPAWAY CAMP 1-3, and perhaps I should mention the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE series as a reference), but with CHOP, I just didn't enjoy the humor nor the gore enough to champion it. But as I said, I know that this film has an audience, so I do recommend seeing it see is CHOP might be a film for you! | ||||
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