Cross Bearer

Originality and progressiveness are two things I love when I'm watching a horror film. And although these seem to be rare traits nowadays, an original concept or a twist that throws me completely off is what really gets me off. However when I sit down to watch a slasher I really couldn't give a f**k about any of that stuff. No, when I watch a slasher all I really need is some gore, a nice body count and a ruthless killer. And if there's some gritty atmosphere, sleaze and some nice boob action well then that's even better. More recent films like LAID TO REST and THE ORPHAN KILLER have delivered nicely on this front and I'm glad to say that CROSS BEARER has all of these goodies and plenty more.

Heather (Jean) doesn't exactly have the best life. In fact to put it bluntly, it fu**ing sucks. Her live-in girlfriend is a coke-head, her boss is a sleazy, abusive a**hole and the patrons at her place of employment heckle and harass her. She desperately needs an escape plan and she thinks that she has just found the perfect opportunity. Her boss Harry not only runs the strip joint she works at but also deals drugs on the side. With a sizeable deal lined up he organizes for Heather to make the exchange and return with the cash when it's over. However Heather has other plans. In collusion with her lover Bunny (Marie) she plans to complete the deal but rather than returning to Harry with the cash the two lovers will head off to Greece to begin a new life. A perfect plan, at least in theory. But when the deal doesn't go to plan and the Cross Bearer (Williams) starts picking off his victims, Heather and Bunny's dream quickly becomes a nightmare.

Heather, Bunny and friends arrive at an abandoned warehouse where they are supposed to be meeting their buyer. This provides the film with two essential ingredients; a healthy amount of bodies and nice, big, creepy location for the villain to lurk and stalk. Little do they know however that the Cross Bearer awaits within and has already dispatched of their customer. Little is actually explained about our killer and exactly why he is the way he is but it's safe to assume that he isn't quite right in the head and religion has played an important part in his twisted mindset. He is a religious zealot who has charged himself with purifying the world of it's sinners. And how does he go about this? Why with a carpenter's hammer of course! And wearing a cloth over his head he does bring to mind a certain Jason Voorhees, although I took this to be an homage rather than just a rip-off. Either way this hooded Jesus freak gets down and dirty with his hammer.

The effects work in CROSS BEARER is quite remarkable and comes courtesy of Doug Sakmann who will also be doing effects for the upcoming RETURN TO NUKE 'EM HIGH. And you can breathe a sigh of relief because yes the gore and effects are all practical. There's plenty of blood and brain matter splattering the walls and floor here. This movie is dark and gritty, and not just in the gore department. The locations are grimy and sleazy, (the strip club isn't exactly the Spearmint Rhino) the characters are much the same (Harry the club owner is a detestable creep) and there is plenty of cursing, drug use and sex scenes. Director Adam Ahldbrandt knows exactly what horror fan want and that's plenty of gore and plenty of sleaze.

As for acting I'd say that it's mostly average but with a particularly good performance from Natalie Jean as Heather, but since when is great acting something you look for in a slasher anyway? All of the performances are good enough that they don't detract from the viewing experience and for an indie flick that's pretty good in my book. The soundtrack is appropriate and the audio effects were nice as well. The solid sound of hammer colliding with head is infinitely satisfying.

Essentially CROSS BEARER is everything I look for in a slasher film. It's dark, gritty, sleazy and has plenty of blood, brains and boobs. Sure it's lacking in the originality department, the acting isn't the best and there may be a few other hiccups here and there but even with those criticisms I would still say that CROSS BEARER is one of the most satisfying slashers I've seen in quite some time. It's not something I'd recommend for mainstream horror fans but if you can handle everything I've detailed in this review then definitely check it out.

I give it 7 out of 10 gore encrusted hammers.

I understand some of the reasons why CROSS BEARER is getting low reviews, but come'on, 1 out of 10? That is not fair. There are much worse films out there with bigger budgets that are more deserving of a 1 than this. I get it, though. Some unintentionally(?) funny/corny lines (like the one I used in my header summary). The acting was nothing to write home about, but it was passable. The gore effects were decent. The lighting was really good. The girls were pretty hot for the most part. I would have liked it better though if the killer talked less. The bag or whatever it was he wore over his head was pretty cool. That was probably the only scary aspect to the film. I do think the filmmakers have potential with a bigger budget and I am looking forward to watching THE CEMETERY hopefully sometime soon.

This movie is torture porn, plain and simple. It's got the usual crap you see in most horror movies these days: bad acting, bad script, victim knocks the killer out but doesn't check to make sure the killer is dead, characters splitting up, no cell phone service, etc. When I was watching this movie I thought, "People aren't even trying to make anything new and engaging with horror movies these days. It's all about rehashing the same junk." And that's pretty much all this movie is: just a rehashing of the same junk any horror fan has seen before. The killer wears a bedsheet over his head. I subscribe to the idea that if you're going to conceal the killer's identity, give him a good disguise or a gruesome face. Don't just give him a bedsheet and a hammer and expect people to be scared.

Without the credits, the movie is less than 65 minutes. And even within those 65 minutes there isn't much to watch. Much of it is just establishing the cardboard characters and their lives and long scenes inside a stripclub. I don't mind scenes of strippers at work. But I get the feeling the director put those scenes in the movie to keep the viewers interested and to pad together a movie that would have been a 30-40 min. short without the stripclub scenes.

All in all, if you've seen torture porn movies before then you know what you're getting into if you decide to watch Cross Bearer. So you only have yourself to blame if you watch it and end up hating it. I tried to warn you by putting out this 1-star review of this movie that deserves 0 stars at most.

While I haven't seen this movie just the synopsis is enough to tell me all I want to know. The main character is a stripper living with a woman who has a kid from a man and has a drug problem, has a girlfriend she is cheating with and wants to run away with, has to do a job(commit a crime) to get out of the hated life. Then we get treated to a psychopath who just happens to be Christian and wants to kill all degenerates? Really we have a junkie stripper who is about to commit a crime and run away with a lover. I, and I am sure many feel this way, are tired of being told that criminals and drug addicts are good, that alternate lifestyles are normal, and that God is somehow involved in making people murderers.

Heather (Natalie jean) is broke. She has a soul sucking job as a stripper. Her live-in girlfriend Victoria has a baby and a coke problem. Her boss Harry is an abusive maniac. Life cannot get much worse... or so she thought.

This film is spoiled by rather weak performances and an almost non-existent plot. But we quickly get the impression that acting and plot were not really concerns for those involved. Rue Morgue says the film "was a huge hit with the underground horror community" and used copies were selling for $100 before a second run. Those who dropped the cash surely did not get their money's worth.

We have some staples of Doug Sakmann and Backseat Conceptions: the excessive amount of naked women and the excellent gore (Sakmann tends to run in the same circles as the Suicide Girls and adult stars like Joanna Angel). Pretty sure I saw "XXX-orcist" in the background at one point.

As a bonus, I learned the term "the High Five" which had somehow previously escaped me.