El leñador

Lumberjack Man is relatively a simple slasher horror comedy with a premise in which had been done several times before. However this film, the villain is a creature who feasts on pancakes but is allergic to maple syrup. It is quite bizarre in that sense.

The characters of the camp students are the typical characters we would see in these type of films. No character really stands. Michael Madsen is possibly one of the highlights. The lead actress isn't bad but isn't exactly memorable.

There are gory kills but a lot which has been done before. One highlight includes the camp lead counsellor's death. Many typical head shot sword kills or head smashes.

The tone of this film is quite silly, more so than expected (there is an extended "food fight" scene. Also a music video type scene involving three characters dressing up fooling around).

Nothing is exactly scary. The lumberjack man's attire isn't menacing, and he doesn't speak or make sounds. When he appears, there isn't suspense. Most the film takes place in the bright day so it takes away any real scares.

Overall, the film is a decent watch but not memorable enough or really worthwhile. Had slightly higher expectations.

Maybe you have to be in the right mood with the right taste in comedy to enjoy this movie, which is why I think many other reviews are negative. But dang it if I wasn't in the right mood with the right taste in comedy. That doesn't make it a great movie, but it was just the right amount of blood, boobs, and genuine chuckles that I wanted.

My advice for enjoying it would be not to expect a good horror movie. It's a decent comedy that alternates between self-aware mockery and nonsensical goofiness (though it's not always 100% clear if it's on purpose).

I'd love to hear a director's commentary on this. I'm sure it would be a lot of: "We don't know why we did it this way, but it was funny." or "This didn't quite work, but we left it in." "They didn't have lines, so we let them say whatever."

I have nothing to spoil here because the story is bland, basic, and you've seen it before. What I will say is that this movie is one the strangest movies I've seen in many years. It's very anti-female, slicing and dicing young women relentlessly. It also features barely legal porn stars who think they can act, dancing and prancing with their breast swinging in the air. Several scenes with ugly males hooking up with hot females, all of them showing T and A before they get decapitated, impaled, or whatever. And the girls totally look underage, which is either enticing or bothersome. Acting is high school level. Violence is sometimes dramatically approached, not comedic, and protracted and overdone. It makes the whole experience very odd. Several homosexual references made to both sexes. It's just a horrible movie. BUT, it will stay on my DVR only because of the eye-candy. Call me a hypocrite. 4 stars for the gorgeous young ladies. 0 for the movie. itself.

Some decent kills completely ruined by horrible acting, dialog and lame attempts at humor. Avoid this one unless its just to goof on.

A bunch of rather older-looking kids travel to a Christian camp out in the woods. There's a lot of painful silliness the bus. Once they arrive we meet their ridiculous leader, a pretty girl also in charge, and the cook(?). It's not long before they start taking their clothes off and the marijuana jokes begin. For some reason only one pair of girls seem to be Christian, the rest not so much. Meanwhile some stranger is traveling in the direction of the camp. He stops at the park ranger office to warn that everyone is going to die and they should evacuate immediately. As evidence he offers some old newspaper clippings.

But of course he's right. By now someone or something dragging some large-pancake cart has started killing kids. It takes a while before the guy who's some researcher arrives at the camp and warns them. At that point we learn who the killer is and why he kills. It's a rather ridiculous explanation that I won't give here. Soon enough the killer arrives in the middle of dining hall and the mayhem is on. At this point the movie decides who the lead characters are and those will have figure out a way to eliminate this killer for good.

I really like the spirit in which this movie was made. I'm all for 80's-style raunchy teen slasher flicks. But as often happens, they had to ruin it by making it a parody/comedy. One movie-making convention seems to be that if you combine teens and violence you have to mask it as a comedy. Unfortunately making comedy and even more so, parody, is far more challenging than straight-forward horror. There are couple of good lines though.

Lumberjack Man is 1:45 hours--at least 15 minutes too long, a strange decision when you don't have a lot of budget. Another convention of low-budget movie-making is that you've got to have at least one big name in your cast. In this case it's Michael Madsen who does a good job, not taking the role too seriously. The rest of the main cast does surprisingly well. All of them give committed performances. The problem is the silliness factor, not the acting. One weakness of this movie is that it really doesn't give us a lead character for which to care. Of course, it's the girl who doesn't take her clothes off who will end up being the lead, but for most of the movie, she isn't. For a movie like this, the cast isn't particularly attractive. Brina Palencia in some tertiary role is lovely though. Then there are some porn stars here for some reason.

I'm very conflicted about this movie. I enjoyed the gore, violence, and nudity but hated the goofiness. The movie-makers have some talent and enthusiasm but botched it.