Description
from Netflix:
When nerds
Dennis and Noah crash a party thrown by the local jocks and hot girls in a
remote cabin, they must combat a brainy serial murderer known at the Driller
Killer, who uses power tools to rid the world of idiots, one clueless teen at a
time.
Notable
actors: Michael Swaim, Katy Stoll, Katie Willert
I have
long been a fan of Michael Swaim's (and Katy Stoll's, and Katie Willert's) work
at Cracked. So, when I heard Swaim was
writing/directing a horror/comedy (and featuring Stoll & Willert in minor
roles), I got kind of excited. It
premiered in a very limited release late last year, and was finally made
available by VOD fairly recently.
By the
time I was able to see it, I had lowered my expectations quite a bit. I wondered how Swaim's humor - previously only
seen in 5 minute intervals - would play for 90 minutes. It was his first movie, and it was made for
$90,000. I've seen great movies by first
time directors on a limited budget (Colin was made
for about $150 and is one of my favorite modern zombie movies), but I've also
seen a fair share of absolutely terrible movies fitting that same description.
My last
concern had nothing to do with Swaim. Horror comedies are tricky films to make. A good one has to give a nod to the films
that have inspired them, while making light of certain characters/plot
inconsistencies. The best ones change
the way you watch horror movies. A lot
of others settle for easy jokes. Others
settle for being flat-out campy. Others
fail in every capacity and are just terrible.
While I
wouldn't rank this among the best in that category (perhaps I'll put together a
list of my favorite horror comedies at some point), it was still pretty
good. The humor held up surprisingly
well for the duration of the movie. The
budget constraints were obvious from time to time, but it was never really a
distraction. I've seen plenty of movies
made with higher budgets that looked a lot worse than this one did. I liked the majority of the characters. I thought the douchebag jocks would get on my
nerves after a while, but they really didn't.
They were consistently amusing in their doofiness.
The villain
was terrific. This was actually one of
my favorite parts of the movie: instead of creating an anonymous killer, they
decided that the killer would be The Driller Killer. The
Driller Killer is an odd, grindhousey 1979 slasher. In that film, the Driller Killer (real name,
Reno Miller) was an artist who is slowly (or not-so-slowly, I guess) being
driven insane by the rock band practicing in the apartment above him. So, like any artist pressed to his limit
would do, be began drilling bums to death with a battery-powered drill.
I saw The Driller Killer a few years ago, as
it was in a pack of 50 movies (Chilling
Classics, to be precise) I had received from my brother, and it had a
catchy title (this is the same reason I watched Bucket of Blood and Werewolf
in a Girl's Dormitory. I am not to
be trusted with those movie packs).
Maybe it's
just because I had already seen The
Driller Killer, but the fact that they reused that killer made me endlessly
happy. After all, Reno was still alive at the end of The Driller Killer. It only makes sense that he continued on with
his killing ways. You know the old saying,
"Once you start killing bums with a drill, the only thing that can stop
you is the steady rain of a thousand bullets."
Still,
judging by his murder method in The
Driller Killer, I would've assumed he would've been caught/killed by
now. He wasn't overly cautious in his
methods. Oh well. I'm certainly not here to nitpick continuity
issues between The Driller Killer and
Kill Me Now, or write Driller Killer
fanfic that explains where he has been all this time. (I might be here for that, but not in this
post. That story needs room to breathe.)
I
thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Quite a
few big laughs (if you can work a solid Oscar Wilde joke into a horror movie,
chances are I'll laugh). Good
characters. A good collection of actors
(even if it was obvious that a lot of them weren't highly trained actors, I
still thought everyone did a great job).
This was a genuinely funny movie.
Glad to see Swaim venturing into the world of moviemaking. I hope he ends up making another one.
My one
complaint: could've used more Stoll, Willert, and Dan O'Brien. You've been put on notice, Swaim.
This is
currently available by VOD. I rented it
for $3.99
from Amazon, and am probably going to end up buying it at some point in the
not-too-distant future. If you have an
extra $4, I highly recommend checking this out.
You’ll get a few laughs and support indie horror in one fell swoop.
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