Honey Britches

A classic exploitation title for a film with almost no exploitation features in it, this tame affair is hugely disappointing on every level. A low budget, cheap effects and amateur acting are all to be expected in films such as these, but the lack of action in the film - which doesn't pick up until the last twenty minutes - is intensely disappointing. This was my first exposure to a Troma film and it left me pretty deflated, but at least the trailer for A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL looks cool.

So, the film has little happening except characters talking to each other a lot, and slapping each other and shouting. Big deal. There are also some incredibly racist attitudes towards the 'redneck' Bible-thumping farmers, which are intended as comedy but I'm not sure. The trouble with the film is the lack of any exploitative features. No nudity, swearing, violence, anything to get excited about. When the murders finally arrive the camera shies away from them, and all we get is a little bit of fake blood. At least some effort could have been taken with them, bad effects are better than no effects! This may be because this was actually filmed FIFTEEN YEARS before being released by Troma!

The only thing the film has going for it are some humorous performances from the two male leads. The first, that of the farmer Harlan, is pretty funny, and he's a weird guy - he hates his wife but lusts after local prostitutes, he's apparently dim-witted but violent when he wants to be. He also looks a lot like Perry Mason but with a big bushy beard. The other performance is from a bald man with a distinct (and slightly overdone - but hey!) British accent, the cool, calm and collected ringleader. The main comedy highlight here is that he looks the spitting image of Sir Clive Sinclair, renowned Spectrum founder of the 1980s and something of a cult icon for those of us interested in those old ZX computers. In fact I think it was Clive in a rare acting role - but this information needs to be verified.

Also on hand, and obviously to trade on his image as a horror icon, is John Carradine, whose scenes are filmed separately from the rest. Carradine brings the Biblical references to the film and presents it in a series of chapters about man's greed and evil leading to death and destruction. Poor John is looking pretty old here, it was one of his last films and he's obviously reading from an autocue, it's quite sad to see the type of films he was reduced to - although it has to be said some of his earlier efforts weren't much better! Altogether this was something of a missed opportunity, it has the right atmosphere but just not enough violence or action to make it entertaining. Preferably avoid if you can.

Demented Death Farm Massacre (1971/86)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This is yet another low-budget drive-in flick where it's history is a lot more interesting than the actual film. In 1972 a movie called SHANTYTOWN HONEYMOON was made but found very limited distribution so it was forgotten until director Fred Olen Ray bought it and tried to sell it to the video market. No one wanted it unless Ray could get a "star" to appear so he hired John Carradine for a day and filmed the added scenes of him pretty much telling us the story of what happened. It turned out that Carradine filmed these scenes in an hour and since Ray hired him for a full day of work, the low-budget filmmaker decided to take advantage of his star by having him act out other scenes, which would eventually be used in films such as STAR SLAMMER, EVIL SPAWN and JACK-O, which would actually be released nearly seven years after the death of Carradine.

Four jewel thieves make a daring robbery but along the way of their escape they must get rid of their vehicle and take off on foot. They come across a redneck man (George Ellis) and his younger, sexy white trash wife (Ashley Brooks) and take them hostage but the rednecks have their own idea of how things are going to go. Those wanting to see the original film will have a pretty simple time doing so because the newly shot Ray/Carradine footage doesn't last over a couple minutes. We see Carradine at the very start for under a minute and then he pops up briefly throughout the film for about another minute total. Those just watching this for Carradine will probably feel cheated. The "real" movie here isn't that bad and in fact it contains some rather campy, fun moments but sadly even at 80-minutes this thing runs way too long. I'll admit that I found plenty of the redneck humor to be fun and a large part of this is due to the performances by Brooks and Ellis as the redneck couple. Ellis is the old, bearded man who is constantly preaching about sins while at the same time paying a black woman for sex and selling moonshine. I found Ellis to be pretty good at screaming off these Bible quotes and it made me laugh several times. Brooks is certainly easy on the eyes in her little redneck dress and her silly accent just really makes you love her. The four actors playing the thieves all give bad performances but thankfully they're all so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh. I really loved it when they tried to get dramatic or "scary" because of the way they'd carry on was just downright hilarious at times. There are a couple quick nude shots as well as some minor gore including one pitchfork sequence. Fans of the horror genre might get a chuckle out of those scenes but it's those looking for low-budget hicksploitation that are going to be the ones finding this most appealing. The biggest problem with the film is its extended running time plus there are way too many moments where the film stops dead in its tracks as it seems the screenplay just wants to talk and talk and talk without the dialogue ever moving the story along.

I rented this movie a few months ago. My brother, his friend and I were on a cheesy horror flick kick, and we thought this movie would be funny. We were very wrong. It was a waste of my money and a waste of my time. After barely 10 minutes we were already falling asleep and losing all interest. It got so bad that we eventually decided to fast forward through the whole movie, and see if there were any interesting scenes. Not once did I take my finger off that fast forward button. A day later I actually attempted to watch the full movie. After watching it all the way through I realized one thing. It was 100 times more interesting when we were fast forwarding it. Don't be fooled into renting this low budget crapfest called Honey Britches. You don't want to make the same mistake I did.

I am usually a big fan of movies like this one, however I felt that this film failed to deliver on several levels. Firstly, and it might just be my copy, the sound (especially the dialog) was awful. I was sure I could hear a generator running in several places; probably to keep the lights/other equipment going. The characters were horrible. I can't even complain about clichés and stereotypes as these particular characters were far too one dimensional for even those embarrassing labels. It is fun to listen to the "actors" flub their lines and awkwardly phrase even the most dry dialog. Worst of all however, was the complete lack of nudity/gore. There were some tantalizing glimpses that held some promise, but it was disappointing in the end. The one exception is a murder by pitchfork, but it was short and ultimately underwhelming. Best left alone even for fans of the genre. There are so many more worthy pieces out there that deliver the goods. All in all, I found myself bored and reaching for the fast forward button.

Moments mostly of bad film-making. It is, to me anyway, clearly not a horror film that got messed with some in the editing to try to make it more horrifying--with little success. Though none of the performances are really much good, some have a regional theater style fascination. You'll hope for real nudity, but your hope with remain only a hope by and large. The failed camp nature of the thing is somehow less painful than in other purely Fred Olen Ray movies, so maybe he didn't have that much to do with this one.

Total crapola post production sound job leads to more laughs and they try real hard to use sounds that don't match the picture, it's like they only have one FX CD just had to make it work for everything--though there is very little in the way of polish on any level. The first, and one of the only, night scenes in the movie is almost entirely out of focus and grainy.

It's sort of going for a 2000 Maniacs feel I suppose only less well made--yes that's what I said.