------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Rating : 1.5/10
Directed By : Joe Castro
Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre)
Nick Principe (Laid to Rest)
Cleve Hall (The Halfway House)
Lisa M. Garcia
Supplied By : Breaking Glass Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : January. 24, 2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PLOT - Ungodly brutal beatings turns Chris, a young man, into a fiend that sets off a bloody, like never before seen, rampage. Beauty is truly only skin deep - Watch a young paraplegic, whose body is also wrecked with spinal bifida, fight for her life as her older, beautiful sister tries to murder her. - It’s been 36 years since Jesse’s loving mother was raped by his biological father. Now, after hiding and running their entire lives in fear of this murderous rapist --- He has found them! - A group of Christian teenagers are stalked, mamed and burned by a local legend in a haunted forest. Three legendary serial killers terrorize downtown Los Angeles by murdering countless innocent souls and the killer plan is to go out with a real bang. There’s nothing like the sweltering heat of summer to set off a massacre. The Summer of Massacre is a 100 mph slasher ride that never slows down. Packed with enough gore and insanity to send you looking for your barf bag. | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| THE REVIEW Director Joe Castro's THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE, is a Slasher anthology that presents 4 short stories in between interviews with faux Serial Killers - all involving murder and gore, all occurring within the summer months. Below, I will list each of the film's short stories, along with my opinions of them. Chapter 1 : "Rampage" The film opens up with a story involving a runner that is ambushed and beaten by a gang of thugs. A short time after the attack, the man miraculously awakens with have of his face beaten in. However, the man is now bloody thirsty, and he's looking for revenge/ But instead of just going after his attackers, he also leaves a trail of bodies and gruesome gore in his wake. Differing from the other short films in this anthology, "Rampage" seems to be most about the gore> The film is quick to set up the scenario before unleashing a barrage of badly crafted CGI effects. It seemed as if in this segment there was almost a death a minute. This may sound as if it is something that you cannot afford to miss, but trust me, it would probably benefit you more if you did. The only good thing about "Rampage", really is the brief cameo made by Writer/Director Kenneth Hall, but even still, that is hardly a reason to look forward to it. Chapter 2 : "Lump" This short film centers on the Williams family and more so, the mentally and physically handicapped Lorri. Lorri is wheelchair bound and has a large cancer lump on her forehead. Lorri's mom does her best to take care of her the best way she can, but looks for help from her other children. Mrs. Williams rains on her daughters parade, when she tells her daughter that she must look after Lorri while the daughter is out with her boyfriend. To sum things up, the story escalates once the sister, in a fit of rage, pushes Lori of a cliff. Badly injured, she, her brother and boyfriend finish Lorri off, or so they think. Lorri soon springs back to life, able to walk, and able to kill. As a person who is handicapped and wheelchair bound, I have to admit that I took offense to this one. It's getting old and tired that people keep portraying the handicapped as stereotypical helpless individuals. Take it from me, i'm not 100% helpless, am I? After all, I was able to type up this negative review for your film. Take note, please. Luckily however the short ends on a positive note with Lorri killing everyone. And I have to say that Nick Principe, who portrays "Lorri", is the only thing good about this entire film. Chapter 3 : "Son of the Boogeyman" Tells the weird story of a young woman who is dared to go into the house of a neighborhood wacko known as "Mr. Boogens". When she does, the woman is trapped and raped by this mysterious creature, resulting in a pregnancy. Years later the product of the rape is a full grown adult, on the verge of marriage. However, just as he is set to be happy in life, "Dear 'Ol Daddy", finally catches up with him. Honestly, I just don't know what to say about this one. In a weird way, the first half of it is sort of like a twisted fairy tale of sorts. Unfortunately after its ok beginnings, it grows sour, not to mention stupid. A big ogre-like thing trying to kill his human son? Huh? In other words this story is even more ridiculous than the last, and serves as nothing more than a platform for even more of the film's stupid, unrealistic CGI gore. Chapter 3 : "Burn" Burn tells the story of two gay firemen. The two men, although they loved each other, kept their relationship a secret, for the sake of their jobs. However, a vengeful co-worker found out, and later burned the two alive. But the two men soon returned for revenge, killing all whom opposed them. Now legend has it that anyone who lights a fire without saying a prayer first, is doomed. A group of Christian campers blow off the old legend, but soon are forced to endure the truth. I must admit, that out of all for films presented here, "Burn", is the most original in it's plot. AI liked the set up, and the story which was told around a campfire(ie just about every slasher film known to man), and it does show the only signs of being a remotely structured slasher film seen in the film. However, it too suffers from the bad CGI effects. Nothing memorable, yet it has a few minor moments, if you can look past the junk. - There is a 5th short story involving the serial Killers that are interviewed through out THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE, however, it is sort of just a "book-ender" that is not worth mentioning here. A big part of what BREAKING GLASS PICTURES are using for its marketing campaign for THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE is the footnote that the film holds the Guinness World record for having the highest body count in a slasher film. While on paper, this feat does sound mighty impressive, the impression soon wears off, once you have actually see the film. Sure, fair enough, THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE does have a rather big body count, but almost all of the film's death scenes, come by way of terribly crafted CGI effects. Now I know that we have all seen our share of bad CGI effects(and bad practical effects), but trust me when I say that the effects seen here are absolutely horrible. Great, Joe Castro and crew have a film in the Guinness Book of World Records, it's a great thing yo brag about to others, but really for those who take film seriously, it is no big deal at all. Especially if the film that is holding such an honor looks as if it was just thrown together as quickly, as possible, with as many crappy effects as possible to serve as a "body count", just for the sole purpose of winning the award. Truly all this film is about is death scenes. The short stories are poorly scripted in favor of the awful gore, that unfortunately takes the spotlight through out the film. Honestly, while watching this, I couldn't help but think about how this film is disrespectful to the sub genre which it claims to be a part of. Instead of the precision of say, a John Carpenter, here we have a good example of just how bad sloppy and careless film making can be. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| GORE
METER 2/10 It has a lot of sloppy, fake CGI gore. The CGI gore that got it a Guinness World Record. Nut, just because there is a ton doesn't mean that i'm going to give it a higher rating than it deserves, because the truth is, the effects are horrible. | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| MUSICAL
SCORE 2.5/10 Typical suspense |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM There is no easy, nor polite way that I can put this, this movie is bad, and is already the frontrunner for the "Worst Film of 2012", and the year is just getting started. Not very good all around, the effects are bad(did I mention this?), the flow of the stories as one project, as well as the acting(minus Nick Principe - who is too talented for this). I don't often "attack" movies or still people to stay away from them, however, I think that doing just that would be a great idea. Also, a note to the distributor/production company - a screener with a huge watermark in the middle of the film, for the entire film, doesn't exactly make it any easier to review a film | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| STILLS | ||||
|
