Brutal Massacre: A Comedy

Well, a 'comedy horror' film really can go one of two ways; either down the pan, or just sit on the edge of the pan. Surprisingly, I found myself laughing, and then laughing some more. Shot in mockumentary style, BM follows the travails of director and crew in the shooting of yet another horror film by a failed director. The acting is tight, the shots well put together, and the laughs keep coming. For what it is, it's pretty good. if it weren't a spoof, it would be cringeworthy, as a spoof, it is well made, and funny!

I want to recommend this movie, the cast have been in some great movies and someone clearly laboured over the script. But in the end it just doesn't deliver enough in any department to truly be all that likable.

The story is about the making of a horror movie and the crew have some problems...That is it. This is the opposite of Smothered, a horror movie starring horror icons where there is no clear direction. Here it is all about the director, but the character work is lacking. Both are trying to explore and satirise aspects of the horror film industry, however in this case the film contains no actual horror but is a straight comedy. While the 'A Comedy' is in the title it is still surprising that a film where the main title is 'Brutal Massacre', there is no horror whatsoever. I was sitting there expecting some kind of horror shenanigans to materialise, but they never do. It's like going into Gareth Edwards' Monsters and not knowing it is a slow art piece more about aesthetics than actual monster mayhem, it makes it hard to enjoy the movie for what it is.

So to be clear, this is a straight mockumentary comedy about low budget horror. It has some good ideas and some kind of funny moments and observations but overall falls flat since most of these are either obvious or have already been done. What's more you never really care about any of the characters all that much and that hurts this film even more than had it been a straight horror, at least in that case there would have been cool deaths to enjoy. There is just too little to root for or care about, and the jokes aren't funny enough to make up for that. It is a 'meh' all-round unfortunately.

I got it off Netflix, and I'm glad I didn't pay for it. I think making fun of the horror genre, both it's creators and it's fans (with the Fangoria convention bits), could produce a LOT of funny material. This seemed to be lacking that. It had it's funny moments, but I didn't laugh out loud much. I laugh more during Spinal Tap/Best In Show/A Mighty Wind/etc, which this seemed to try and replicate but couldn't. The story was fairly predictable, I saw what was going to happen next a mile away. Really, the most enjoyable part was picking out actors from their other work (cameos from recognizable genre actors from films such as Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, and the always-beloved low-budget Clerks). It was worth the time of watching it, but I'm glad I watched it alone. I might have felt as if I wasted someone's time if I watched it with a group.

Most movies I've seen about making a movie aren't very good, but this one bucks the system. It's about a director who created one hit movie. After a series of bad movies he is basically given one more chance to create a movie that people want to watch. He and his film crew head to a small town to film his latest movie.

The director is just awful. He hires a cast of kooky film makers and actors. Everything that could possible go wrong while making a movie goes wrong in this movie. The acting is good. The characters are completely clueless.

It's a low budget movie, but is still well done. I barely even noticed the lack of big effects. I just came across this movie and didn't think much of it, but after watching it, I am very glad that I did.

I really wanted to like this movie and watched all the way through thinking it had to get better. Don't get me wrong, it's not the worst flick ever but it never lives up to it's potential. The premise is good, the cast is great (I was especially pumped to witness the return of David Naughton) and, God love 'em, you can tell everyone tried their best. It just falls short over and over again. "Brutal Massacre" should serve as a constant reminder to filmmakers that only Christopher Guest can do Christopher Guest movies and, despite the fact he makes it look easy, you should probably just forget trying to do the same. Naughton and Brian O'Halloran are fantastic in this and they should be seen more often...they are the reason this gets 4 stars from me. If you're going to have the "Spinal Tap" of horror I suspect you might want the guy who made "Spinal Tap" to helm it...just thinking out loud there.