Chop

You know by now this isn't going to change your life or how you define film, so let me tell you what it can do for you. A perfectly decent latenight comedy horror viewing, made proportionately better by how much beer at hand.

The guy behind this grinded his teeth working at Troma, so he knows film as Lloyd Kaufman taught it; make your own damn movie, doesn't matter how cheap or choppy so long as the game is agile, self-aware and one step ahead of you dear viewer. This is done on the cheap but is all the rest. The setup here is that our likable guy is being quite literally chopped away until he can remember how he affected others. Turns out he was a pain in the ass junkie before he cleaned his act. Strangers are brought in to take a piece. Our half-mad psycho keeps taunting for an answer.

There is some gore and some tension involved that is probably being spoofed from Hostel - our guy looks a little like Roth anyway - but this is pitch black comedy first and foremost, like Trome used to do it minus too much explicitness. So throw some weirdness on screen that you know is going to attract a crowd, then be a good host and make everybody have a good time. This one does, up to the halfway point at least.

The downside: it's a great premise, our guy wakes up and fingers are missing. It hinges a lot of its power on us feeling genuinely sorry for the plight of our awkward protagonist. But that's the whole thing and it's not taken further. While enjoyable and riproaring for a while, it gets tedious in the latter stages.

The Pegg/Wright team could have done this with more acerbic wit, a young Sam Raimi with some cinematic verve. It would have been a classic in both cases.

Lance Reed (Will Keenan) is happily married and life is good. While traveling, his car breaks down and Lance accepts a ride from a helpful stranger. (Timothy Muskatel) The stranger then proceeds to jokingly ask him who would he save in a hypothetical situation, his wife or brother.

Then, not so jokingly, he shoots Lance with a tranquilizer gun. He's rather annoyed at Lance, you see. Reason being, Lance did something on him years ago, that caused him to suffer. Now he's gonna make Lance suffer. Problem is, Lance can't remember who this guy is, and feels he doesn't know him from Adam. This enrages the stranger even more. Now he's gonna make Lance suffer even more. Bit by bit, and piece by piece, he will totally destroy every aspect of Lance's life, and the lives of those he cares about...

This sounds pretty grim from the premise, but Chop is actually one of the funniest horror comedies I've seen in ages. Trent Haaga, who cut his teeth with Troma, (and who also wrote the rather impressive Deadgirl) has created a dark but hilarious horror flick that pokes fun at torture themed horrors very effectively.

With great performances from both Keenan and Muskatel, as well as some belly laugh scenes and dialogue, not to mention some decent gore FX, it's a treat for any horror fan, particularly fans of torture themed horrors. This film really shouldn't work with such a premise, but it honestly does, and it went down a real treat with the crowd at the Dead By Dawn 2011 festival, where I caught it.

9/10 it's an excellent and very funny little horror and highly recommended. And all you exploitation fans out there... see if you can spot a cameo from Camille "I Spit On Your Grave" Keaton.

I can't believe there are only 6 reviews on this film. My God this film had me in tears laughing all the way through. It's sharp, clever, witty and downright hilarious. I won't get involved into any plot ideas here but lets just say there are a myriad of plot twists on display here. In fact this film is extremely gruesome as well but it balance the elements very nicely to pack in a 90min feature. The director has been noted with this reveiwer and the main hero of the film is a talent beyond talent. The show really belongs to the main antagonist as he is full of tricks up his sleeve and is so evil throughout. This is in the runnings for best comedy horror for me of all time.

A man gets a ride from a truck driver when is car beaks down in the middle of a canyon. The truck driver seems friendly at first, but before long, he's tied the man to a chair, hacking off his limbs one by one, that is, after destroying everything else in his life first. Apparently, he had wronged the truck driver years before and the driver won't stop until he can recall what he did. Mostly unstressful black-comedy/horror hybrid, as the plite of the unsympathetic protagonist fails to generate any tension and 'trying-too-hard-to-seem-clever' script boasts only a few laughs. That being said, it's still better than 'Hard Candy.'

I don't regret watching Chop but it isn't a movie I would watch again in the future. It's all a bit low budget but it's watchable. People rating this with the highest score are just exxagerating as there are thousands better movies than this one. The acting is just okay, nothing great but nothing cringing either. I could see the end coming from miles away but it wasn't bad actually. In short, I watched much worse movies so I can't complain but I watched tons of better ones as well.