The Summer of Massacre

Normally I would write a plot here, but this film has no recognizable plot. It is simply one cheesy death after another with no story, characters or dialogue.

I really wanted to give this film the lowest score possible, but I have to maintain that "Hell's Threshold" is still probably the worst. Maybe I will change my mind... sitting through this was the most awesome torture ever. I was so bored, I wanted to punch my screen and slit my own throat. It truly is a pile of horse apples.

I can respect a film that tries to set the record for on-screen kills. But why does this even count? The CGI was so bad, just abysmally bad, that it was more cartoon than movie. Characters show up for no reason other than to be killed by objects that should not be able to kill them. If this film had anything going for it (and it does not), the visuals would take away all the credit.

What saddens me is that Broken Glass picked this one up for distribution. Sure, being an independent distributor, they cannot all be winners. But this film will reflect on the Broken Glass brand, and not very favorably. Once upon a time, Lions Gate was a respected genre company. Then they started releasing everything they could get their hands on, and no longer have much credibility. Please, Broken Glass, do not make that same mistake.

I do not recommend this film for any reason. Not for fun, not for parties, not for dates, not for background sound... I would not even want a copy of this within 500 miles of me. I hope to never meet the creators, because it would be too difficult to hold back about how awful this moldy piece of cow dung is.

The Summer of Massacre immediately caught my attention upon learning that it was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest body count ever recorded in a film. It's a great gimmick to get genre fans interested in a film that they likely would have never bothered with otherwise. Unfortunately, the world record is the only thing the movie has going for it.

The film is an anthology with eight killers in five different stories. Within the 98 minute run time, there is a body count of 155. (Other films technically have higher body counts, but these are all on-screen deaths.) For a record breaker, I was expecting something a bit more impressive. The kills employ a variety of instruments, but none of them are particularly memorable due to the poor effects. They are almost entirely computer generated, with cartoonish animation that looks like something out of Play Station 2 game. Writer/director Joe Castro (Tiny Toons) is a protégé of Herschell Gordon Lewis, but there is no way the Godfather of Gore would approve of this. The film should appear with an asterisk next to its name in the record book.

The first "chapter" is fittingly titled Rampage. A young man, Chris (Tim A. Colley), is out for a run when he is jumped and beat with a steel pipe. It seems like he will be the first victim, but when his body is found, he spurts back to life and goes on a plot less killing spree. Naturally, with this many deaths, there is virtually no character development and the acting is poor, but it hardly matters since most characters are only on screen for a few seconds before being demolished.

The second chapter is lovingly referred to as Lump. Laurie (Laid to Rest's Nick Principe in a role that some may consider offensive) is a deformed, mentally challenged paraplegic on experimental steroids in an effort to treat her spina bifida. She is on the brink of death, but her bitch of a sister, Kimberly Ann (Lisa M. Garcia), decides to speed up the process. While out in the woods with a group of friends, Kimberly pushes the Laurie's wheelchair off a cliff. The only problem is that Laurie won't die. In fact, she can walk now, and she wants revenge. Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre) cameos as the girls' mother.

Son of the Boogeyman is the third chapter. In the past, a woman (Deanna Meske) went to investigate the local boogeyman, Mr. Boogens (Scott Barrows), only to be raped by the monstrous man. We learn all of this through a flashback as the byproduct of the rape, her son Jesse (Jerry G. Angelo), relays the horrific tale to his girlfriend on their first anniversary. After years of searching, the boogeyman returns to kill his now-full grown son.

The last chapter is called Burn. A group of friends decide to stay up late at a youth ministry camping retreat. Gathered around the campfire, one of them tells the local legend of Devon Hopper (J.T. Seaton) and Michael Rose (Joe Castro), a pair of gay firemen who were burned to death by their fellow firefighters. They later returned to kill of those who wronged them. Everyone seems to have a connection to crime, meaning that any of them could be the next victim.

The final scene is a brief one in which a trio of sadistic murderers are holed up in a Los Angeles warehouse while surrounded by police. This is something of a wrap-around story, as news coverage of the event opens and closes the film. Between each story is purported FBI tapes of various killers speaking candidly about their crimes. They are intended to be chilling, I presume, but the trite pieces are void of all emotion.

As much as I tried to block it from my mind, I must mention the annoying score. There is music running in the background of the entire movie, regardless of whether or not the scene would play better with natural sound. Even when music could enhance a segment, the generic score seems out of place. Also noteworthy is the homo-eroticism. The film features full-frontal nudity from multiple men, while none of the females shed an clothing - including an awkward scene in which a fully-clothed woman has sex with a nude man.

Castro seems to have bit off more than he could chew, having served as writer, director, producer, actor, makeup and visual effects. While I question the amount of effort that went into some of those aspects (he seems to use the term "experimental" as an excuse for having no story and bad effects), I have no doubt that an abundance of time was spent in post-production to accomplish all of the death scenes. But the movie needs a lot more than that to save it. It's an admirable attempt and it's nice that they got their small place in history with the world record, but otherwise The Summer of Massacre is just another bad movie.

Blood Pigs, Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence, The Burning Moon, Das Komabrutal Duell, Bone Sickness, VS trilogy...these are great ultra-gorefests but The Summer of Massacre is just retarded. It's fatal flaw is that 99% of the blood and gore is CGI. And CGI alone is bad enough but this is really, really bad CGI. And the filmmakers blatantly lie about the bodycount of 155. There's maybe 55 on screen kills. Already dead bodies laying around shouldn't count towards the body count and I hope Guinness revokes their world record for body count in a slasher film (if this isn't a blatant lie). I thought Joe Castro was a practical FX man? I've enjoyed his films such as Evil Unleashed, Legend of the Chupacabra and Jackhammer Massacre which if I remember correctly had almost 100% practical gore fx. Why couldn't he do that here? Is he that lazy? This film with all practical gore and blood would have been awesome. No one has ever liked CGI and it's even more hated when it comes to blood and gore. Not only were the fx horrid but the death scenes were stupid. A guy getting a remote control pushed through his mouth and splitting his head? A guy's head getting crushed with a seatbelt? Some of the stuff in the burn story was kinda neat despite still being very dodgy fx wise. Another knock on the film is the complete lack of female nudity and that wouldn't be a big deal if there wasn't any male nudity which unfortunately there was. There was even a sex scene with no nudity. The male nudity wasn't confined to the behind either...trying to tell us something Joe? This is an anthology by the way and none of the stories are worth mentioning. I dare you next time to top this film Joe, but with 100% practical blood and gore fx. Brian Paulin made 3 films just as gory as this and much, much better without any CGI at all and probably even less money than you wasted on this disappointment.

This movie was great I mean yes it is a lower budget film but it's amazing. The film had had the most kills in a slasher film and is even in Guinness Book of Records. Enjoy trying to count all of them or better yer several of us have made a drinking game out of this film. Every time a person dies you take a drink of beer. It's amazing! This true cinema on the lower budget end but really shows that anything is possible.

Starring: Brinke Stevens,Cleve Hall and Ted Alderman.

A JOE CASTRO Experience.

This film is a ride of Painful Proportions,Not because it's hard to watch ( Think of starting a Drinking Game for every death on screen ?) But,You almost feel bad for each victim,Over & Over again.

Let's breakdown the anthology segments.

RAMPAGE,Was first on DVD and can be summed up -An attack leads to another and another.

Some highlights( Wrong words?) would be the BINOCULAR shoving into skull and Blood & Guts spewing onto the camera lens (alot).

There is some very unique kills,Almost video game worthy and Let's see GRAND THEFT AUTO try the Auto-Shop scene anytime soon.

LUMP,Perhaps is alittle mean( Yeah,Even for this flick) and has the saving grace of BRINKE STEVENS getting to really act as the mother of a off-kilter familia.

SON OF THE BOOGIEMAN,A nannie ? dares some kids to go into a haunted house and is raped by the ogre within and spawns a child years later,that SHREK-like figure has been killing to see.

BURN, Has some nice fire effects and then a PLOT about two gay firemen allowed to burn to death while embraced and the revenge the disfigured mess brings to all fire starters for decades after.

Joe Castro,Steve Escobar and Schroeder have a product from Breaking Glass Pictures that will make Amazon very happy it carried this out of season (?) gore fest.