The Butcher

This was one of those horror movies where you hope all the characters get killed quickly, because they're so annoying. They're not just annoying, they are annoying clichés of characters.

Obnoxious frat boy? Check, he's here, let's hope he gets knocked off first. Sexy lesbians? Yup, they play that for the little bit it's worth. Logical, level-headed survivor type girl? Yeah, you'll spot her in the first two minutes. Screaming teenagers? Sure enough.

This is an attempt to get some of the atmosphere of other horror movies and make it work in a mix. It doesn't work, it just comes across as a blatant ripoff without humor or originality of any kind. During the first ten minutes you'll find yourself hoping that the bad guy mops them up quick and then goes to Cancun for a vacation with some margaritas and maybe beach babes. That would have been a huge improvement over what you get, which is the worst and most predictable elements of the last ten slasher movies you saw.

While driving to Las Vegas with his college friends Rachel (Catherine Wreford), Liz (Tiffany Kristensen), Atlanta (Ashley Rebecca Hawkins), Sophie (Myiea Coy) and Adam (Tom NageL), the selfish and wealthy Mark (Alan Ritchson) decides to take a shortcut. Mark stresses with the driver of an old tow truck, and suddenly he sees a woman crossing the road and has a serious car accident. His friend Liz dies, and Mark and Adam run after the girl, who is wounded. The group decides to seek help while Atlanta stays with the severed body of Liz in the car. They find an old house in the woods where a family of psychopaths lives and they are chased by the insane family.

One that reads my summary above would immediately recalls "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Hills Have Eyes", "Wrong Turn", "Timber Falls", "House of Wax", "Wolf Creek", "House of 1000 Corpses" and probably another dozen rip-offs of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and remakes. Therefore, there is no originality in the predictable plot. However, the unknown cast has many young actors and actresses and their performances are not bad. I agree that this routine of repeating and repeating the same storyline is annoying, but "The Butcher" has qualities and is not as bad as mentioned in many reviews. As an incentive to the young cast, my vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Açougueiro" ("The Butcher")

It wasn't too bad but i have seen so much better, you can bet i wont be watching it again, once was enough for me, needed more gore, then maybe it would have been a little better, but it really mainly needed a little bit of originality, it was too much like other slasher flicks like Texas chainsaw massacre, wrong turn, hills have eyes... the same movie over and over again gets kinda boring...but it would probably be an alright movie to watch once, but there is no way that there could ever be a reason to watch this more than that.i give this movie a 4, but it could have gotten better had it had a little bit more gore and originality...... ......... ......... ........

Butcher, The (2006)

** (out of 4)

DTV horror film is in the same vein as countless others. Six college students are on their way to Las Vegas when they decide to turn down an old country road to save some time. They eventually get stranded and then are attacked and slashed by a deformed redneck. We've seen this type of film countless times over the past three decades and I'm sure we'll be seeing them in the next three decades. The film is actually better than a lot of the DTV horror films of today but there are still a lot of problems here. The cast doesn't give very good performances but their characters are at least entertaining. What really kills the film is how stupid the characters are as they are constantly doing the wrong things scene after scene. While stupid characters are a staple of horror films, the ones here are just so stupid that they become rather annoying. There's a small amount of nudity and good amount of gore to keep you awake but that's about it.

The script of "The Butcher" was obviously written taking bits from Wrong Turn and The Hills Have Eyes with a little scent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Although not so violent as the latter, this flick doesn't fail to the genre: Horror.

However I must ask the Screenwriter why he gave the name "The Butcher" to this film. A most suitable name would be "The Insane Family". I'll bet you'll say the same thing after seeing this.

The acting is not bad, the special effects are good and the story doesn't run into the clichés usually made, except for the spoken dialogs. Stupid lines and nonsenses like asking if anybody is there in an obvious empty house and calling for help in the woods knowing that the killer is doing a chase was a completely dumb thing to write making it unoriginal as seen in other films countless times.

I must point out the unreal factor not exclusive of this movie but always seen in others of the same genre. After the death of their female friend, there's some convincing acting about her death, but then is all forgotten and everyone is "cool" and behaving as if nothing horrible has happened.

Nevertheless I found "The Butcher" entertaining and far better than "Venom" and because it showed a good directing and things that were very different from those movies mentioned. We do not see the usual way of a teenager get killed like in Jason Friday 13th or Halloween and we have always the perspective where the killer is and where the victims are.

There's some slow pace at the middle of it and the gore is not intense but all the action and the subsequent end turns this into a mildly enjoyable time spent.

Definitely a good renting. (Actually, the best thing, and if you can, it's to try to see it free).