Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove

My husband rented this DVD and said usually Asylum put out pretty good, low-budge campy movies. I said, "ok, let's watch it." You know, it was pretty good! It was no big epic, movie classic or anything, but for a "B" grade movie I enjoyed it. The casting seemed good, the young actors seemed to fit their parts well. The acting by everyone seemed good (again) and believable. The plot was something different, I would have called the Jolly Roger a serial killer but strangely nobody used that term. He really cut a swath through the town. There was plenty of murder/attacks/scary scenes etc. pretty much evenly distributed through the movie to keep your attention. It had a good flow to it. Like the other reviewer, I agree that the bar scene was a hoot, just trashy enough to be believable and humorous also. I had to laugh out loud at many of the bar scenes. You probably will too. I liked the town where the movie was set, it was kind of gloomy and rainy and dreary for some good pirate atmosphere. All in all it was enjoyable and I actually wouldn't mind watching it at a future date.

This movie is pretty much a remake/homage (or more honestly, a ripoff) of John Carpenter's The Fog. The acting and make-up are pretty decent, but the continuity is horrendous. I realize logic isn't something you should expect in a horror movie but the many flaws are clearly due to oversight, inattention or downright laziness. It also has one thing I can't stand. At one point the local police chief notices a security camera and reviews the footage hoping to get a glimpse of the killer. Well not only does he get a glimpse, he gets to see 2 separate murders from 7 different angles including the killer's and both victim's POV. Nice.

I love b-grade movies but unfortunately this movie doesn't suck enough to qualify. But it isn't good enough to qualify as a decent straight-to-video horror, either. I guess the best compliment I can give it is this: The production quality of Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove makes Bog Creatures look like Legend of Chupacabra.

This is another one of those in-betweeners--similar to Kali: Tears of a Clown or whatever the hell the name of that film was . . . oh, yeah--after working up the energy to click a couple times, I see the proper name of that one was just Tears of Kali. An in-betweener is a film that's not low-budget-crappy enough to be directed by John Specht, but no major studio put 20 million dollars into this puppy, either, so you can't expect something as slick as, say, I Know What You Did Last Summer. In fact, IMDb is telling me that Jolly Roger was made for a mere 500 grand. For that amount of money, and considering how "hiss" poor this could have been if Sub Rosa would have backed it instead, this isn't a half bad film.

In fact, I popped it into my DVD player with the anxiety that it was going to one of those shot-on-a-99-dollar-DXG-video-camera messes where I can't hear any of the dialogue unless I crank up my stereo to 10 and put on a pair of headphones, but director Gary Jones and crew went to pains to ensure that this back-from-the-dead avenging Pirate slasher flick looks and plays relatively professional. That's not to say that you can't tell that this is a low budget indie: the acting can be rougher than the Pennsylvania leg of the Appalachian Trail; you'll swear that at least one actor had to be a producer or closely related to a producer; the music has a generic porno film quality; there are a number of weird jumps in the narrative where it seems like a reel of film or at least a couple script pages must have been lost but they just didn't think it was that important; it's often difficult to tell if the script was supposed to be written as more of a comedy--you'll certainly be laughing at some dialogue and events--like the ridiculous cop/coroner(?) and the fact that one protagonist figures that the best way to record a list of names off of carved stone with a paper and pencil is to do a rubbing.

But despite all of those blemishes, despite the fact that the plot is obviously cribbed a bit from The Fog and the villain was designed to cash in on the mega-success of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films, I found myself enjoying Jolly Roger more often than not, and it's not just because of the traditional slasher film move of showing plenty of breastages--although that certainly didn't hurt.

The title character is a nice, kinda campy idea for a new slasher villain. Jones and co-writer Jeff Miller wrote a simple but captivating and even occasionally suspenseful story where they do a decent job of weaving together a few different threads. Jones' timing is pretty good--the film has a nice flow aside from those few weird narrative jumps. Although some of the acting is rough, some is not bad at all. They found great locations. They made the smart move of putting a lot of the money they had into cameras, film, sound and effects.

I know some people said that the effects in the film looked cheap, and occasionally, they do look fake--for example, the Jolly Roger character clearly has a mask on with black makeup around his eye--but for this budget level, the effects are pretty incredible. There are decapitated heads galore, for example, which are modeled just as well as any 100 million dollar film. The actual scenes of violence--often leading up to those fake heads--are slightly rougher, but they're not at all bad. Rough technical problems are often cleverly shot around, and you'll never EVER see effects even a quarter as good in a Sub Rosa film unless they have a serious change of production philosophy and probably an influx of inheritance money from some long lost member of the Stanze clan. Even the Jolly Roger character, despite the obvious mask, isn't at all bad. The design of the character is great overall, and I actually prefer that Jones didn't just shoot his face in darkness all the time--a viewer should be able to use some imagination.

Don't pass this one up just because it's not perfect--just don't expect anything high gloss, and watch it with a sense of humor--there are occasional moments of enjoyable, sublime absurdity for those of you like me who enjoy that kind of thing. I'd love to see what Jones and his collaborators could do with a Jolly Roger sequel if they had at least 10 times the budget and maybe some input from Frank Henenlotter.

Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove isn't without its redeeming qualities. The strip scenes are amusing, Kristina Korn is easy on the eyes and likable and, although his character is made too much of a wimp at times, the talented Rhett Giles does give a decent performance. Unfortunately, that's the only praise I can give. It is a cheap-looking film, though I've seen cheaper, with dull lighting, very annoyingly slipshod photography and special effects that are so fake and lacking in any finesse or technical value. The music is obvious, unfitting and has nothing memorable. Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove also has some of the most sophomoric dialogue I've heard in recent memory, the story holds no surprises, as we have seen it all before and executed far better, has no atmosphere or nail-biting suspense and is eye-rollingly ridiculous at times too. Some of the scenes are clearly repetitive of others in the film, but clumsily disguised to not make it look so. There are no likable characters, again I don't mind stereotypes and clichés as long as they are written well and interestingly, which Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove failed to do. Jolly Roger is the one character you sort of root for, though Korn does decently with really bad material, the others are obnoxious in the worst sense. There are many killings, but they offer no genuine sense of horror, they're bloody but crude-looking and unoriginal and they are often very randomly placed. The acting is generally awful, Tom Nagel is bland while everybody else, especially in the scene where the Mayor talks to the kids about LeChuck, overacts to the point of utter embarrassment. Korn and Giles are the only two exceptions. All in all, not terrible or the worst movie ever, but it is a good idea to skip this one. 3/10 Bethany Cox

This movie was so bad! The gore was pretty cheesy, the acting was terrible - every time someone was killed, we busted out laughing at how horrible it was! I agree with the other poster tho - the strip club scene was pretty amusing. However, it was a like a train-wreck, we couldn't stop watching it. I gave it a 4 only because we laughed and enjoyed ourselves making fun of it. The ending was pretty dorky and sort of set it up for another movie (god help us). The commentaries/making of were funny too - they spoke like they were making this million dollar blockbuster and talked about how great the special effects were (they weren't, trust me). Overall, a good movie to watch when you have nothing better to do and want to laugh at something campy.