Charlie's Farm

As films go, this was a 5 but as horror films go, this was a 6. This really had everything you would want from a slasher flick: a menacing and monstrous baddie with a sad and weird backstory, a variety of kills and plenty of gore and creepy moments in eerie settings. This isn't one of the great Australian horror films but it is a dependably good one. It does everything you want it to. The build up is nicely paced and then it just kicks off and doesn't relent until it ends.

One of the things I really liked about this film was that it was a horror that wasn't filled with teens and tweens unlike a lot of films in the genre these days.

It was an enjoyable watch and a good way to fill the late night. If you like your horror films then I'd recommend this one to you.

I first watched Charlie's Farm not long after it came out on DVD and really enjoyed it. Roll on six years or so and I have just given it a second viewing, sadly this time it didn't have quite the same effect. Let's be honest any movie that has B-movie queen Tara Reid get top billing is never going to be great. Acting isn't her best asset and without sounding ageist I felt that she looked too old for her part as one of the "youths" looking for the farm of the title (she would have been late 30's at the time). This is an Australian slasher movie set in the bush and has some great scenery. Among the cast are two American titans of horror, Bill Moseley and Kane Hodder. Moseley plays Charlie's drunken, murderous father and puts in the best performance of the film, constantly referring to his son as "retard". Hodder, best know for playing Jason Vorhees, is a bit more out of place, he plays a boxing coach who adds very little to the story. Charlie himself is played by man mountain Nathan Jones. I do like Australian movies and the Aussie wit is very much here but overall the acting isn't great and, with a few exceptions, the first half of the film does plod. When the gore and brutal killings do come later on it was worth the wait. Some really gory kills and thankfully no horrible CGI. As a splatter movie it delivers but is low on nudity, just a single female breast and the rear view of a butt naked dude. To date there has been no sequel so for now at least it is a fairly reasonable stand alone title in the modern stalk and slash genre.

Just in case there still are some backpackers crazy enough to go out hiking in the Aussie Outback after "Wolf Creek" and "Wolf Creek 2", there is now "Charlie's Farm", which must be located somewhere West of Bundanyabba, where the people seemingly all turn psychopathic due to the heat and drought! "Charlie's Farm" is exactly what you expect it to be, namely an extremely brutal and visceral '80s throwback-slasher with an undefeatable killer, plenty of disposable victims and excruciatingly painful death sequences. Top of the bill, genre fanatics are treated with guest appearances of beloved horror icons Bill Moseley ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre II", "House of 1.000 Corpses") and Kane Hodder ("Hatchet", "Friday the 13th"). Horror geeks Jason and Mick mislead their girlfriends and plan a camping trip to the notorious murder site Charlie's Farm. The deranged Wilson family who used to own the farm were maniacal rapists, murders and cannibals. Farmer John and his wife eventually got murdered by an angry mob, but their mentally underdeveloped son Charlie fled into the woods and was never found. More than 30 years later, there naturally are many urban legends and campfire tales about Charlie going around, as well as stories about tourists who went out to farm and never returned. As you can see, "Charlie's Farm" literally hangs together from traditional slasher clichés, stereotypes and homages to genre classics. The film is a lot of fun, although admittedly it takes a little too long before hell fully breaks loose, and the ideal type of entertainment to watch in group with beer and pizza (or at a Film Festival after midnight, like I did). The gore and make-up effects are very professionally handled and the film definitely contains some of the nastiest murder scenes I've seen in a slasher since a long time. Just to give a few examples, there's a girl whose jaw is ripped off and another poor girl has her whole head squished underneath the wheel of a tractor. Ouch! After Glen Jacobs in "See No Evil", Nathan Jones is another wrestler to depict a crazed killer in a gory horror movie. I can easily understand writer/director Chris Sun's choice to cast Nathan Jones, considering his gigantic posture and menacing grimaces. "Charlie's Farm" represents purely rancid and shameless trashy horror entertainment from Down Under; nothing more and certainly nothing less.

The reasons for why I opted to sit down and watch "Charlie's Farm" was solely because of two things; of which the first was that it is a horror movie, and the second being that Kane Hodder is in the movie. It turns out that my horror heart skipped a beat when I saw that Bill Moseley also was in this movie - a fact which had eluded me.

"Charlie's Farm" started out quite nicely with some brutality and slayings, so the scene and mood of the movie was established right away. So it was off to an impressive start.

The atmosphere of the movie and the build up of the storyline is very reminiscent of the horror movies from the 1990s, so there is a sense of familiarity and nostalgia to be experienced here. Personally, I think that worked out well in favor of the movie.

The cast was for the most part quite interesting in this movie. I was initially thrilled to have Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley together in a horror movie, but was somewhat disheartened when I came to realize that they didn't actually have any on-screen time together. Also, I feel somewhat bamboozled because Kane Hodder didn't really have that big of a role in this movie. Now, I don't claim to be much of a fan of Tara Reid, and for some reason she looks exactly the same in every movie she is in, exactly the same - so she could potentially just be the same character in all of her movies.

The special effects, props and make-up department had done some pretty good work in bringing the movie to life on the screen, and the gore and mayhem looked rather realistic, which really added to the enjoyment of the movie. Well, at least most of the time anyway, there were moments when it was obviously a prosthetic being used, and was painstakingly visibly so.

I have to admit to having a good laugh when Kane Hodder was standing in the dark and asking "is that you Jason?"

If you enjoy the old school slasher horror genre then you will most definitely get a kick out of "Charlie's Farm". However, the movie does follow that traditional blueprint of how the horror movies were made back then, so on that note don't expect any great surprises in terms of innovation or creativity.

Sometimes a horror movie doesn't have to overreach with its premise, Charlie's Farm toils away with mindset. It uses the "cabin in the woods" concept down to the creepy antagonist and assembly of clueless annoying characters. The backstory and gore are made pretty well, but with stuttering pace and awkward dialogues, this will resonate better with horror or gore fans.

One day two friends just decide to visit a harrowing site of murder, and they take mandatory attractive girls there. Soon we follow character with nickname such as Donkey in a ridiculous road trip as a build up for the story. To its credit, Charlie's past is told thoroughly by on-screen characters, which is a nice foundation for the antagonist.

Script consists of blatantly uninspiring jokes and quips. Aside from Natasha (Tara Reid), who seems to be the only one with common sense, there's barely any identifiable character. Fart jokes or stupid decisions in crude display, it looks like the movie wants audience to root for the villain.

Apparently, this particular site is infamous in attracting backpackers. When the murder spree begins there are ample amount of victims and the ways they are dispatched are admittedly creative. There's plenty of gore between the slow trudging plot. Practical effect and make-up definitely produce very nasty sequences. The shock value surprisingly goes a long way.

Unfortunately, some of the scenes in dark lighting are poorly captured, so it may hamper the thrill. That's basically everything Charlie's Farm has to offer, only a couple decent bits from the story and lots of blood for the rest. Horror fans might find some delight, but others would probably be reluctant to visit Charlie's Farm.