Charlie's Farm

Sometimes a horror movie doesn't have to overreach with its premise, Charlie's Farm toils away with mindset. It uses the "cabin in the woods" concept down to the creepy antagonist and assembly of clueless annoying characters. The backstory and gore are made pretty well, but with stuttering pace and awkward dialogues, this will resonate better with horror or gore fans.

One day two friends just decide to visit a harrowing site of murder, and they take mandatory attractive girls there. Soon we follow character with nickname such as Donkey in a ridiculous road trip as a build up for the story. To its credit, Charlie's past is told thoroughly by on-screen characters, which is a nice foundation for the antagonist.

Script consists of blatantly uninspiring jokes and quips. Aside from Natasha (Tara Reid), who seems to be the only one with common sense, there's barely any identifiable character. Fart jokes or stupid decisions in crude display, it looks like the movie wants audience to root for the villain.

Apparently, this particular site is infamous in attracting backpackers. When the murder spree begins there are ample amount of victims and the ways they are dispatched are admittedly creative. There's plenty of gore between the slow trudging plot. Practical effect and make-up definitely produce very nasty sequences. The shock value surprisingly goes a long way.

Unfortunately, some of the scenes in dark lighting are poorly captured, so it may hamper the thrill. That's basically everything Charlie's Farm has to offer, only a couple decent bits from the story and lots of blood for the rest. Horror fans might find some delight, but others would probably be reluctant to visit Charlie's Farm.

Just in case there still are some backpackers crazy enough to go out hiking in the Aussie Outback after "Wolf Creek" and "Wolf Creek 2", there is now "Charlie's Farm", which must be located somewhere West of Bundanyabba, where the people seemingly all turn psychopathic due to the heat and drought! "Charlie's Farm" is exactly what you expect it to be, namely an extremely brutal and visceral '80s throwback-slasher with an undefeatable killer, plenty of disposable victims and excruciatingly painful death sequences. Top of the bill, genre fanatics are treated with guest appearances of beloved horror icons Bill Moseley ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre II", "House of 1.000 Corpses") and Kane Hodder ("Hatchet", "Friday the 13th"). Horror geeks Jason and Mick mislead their girlfriends and plan a camping trip to the notorious murder site Charlie's Farm. The deranged Wilson family who used to own the farm were maniacal rapists, murders and cannibals. Farmer John and his wife eventually got murdered by an angry mob, but their mentally underdeveloped son Charlie fled into the woods and was never found. More than 30 years later, there naturally are many urban legends and campfire tales about Charlie going around, as well as stories about tourists who went out to farm and never returned. As you can see, "Charlie's Farm" literally hangs together from traditional slasher clichés, stereotypes and homages to genre classics. The film is a lot of fun, although admittedly it takes a little too long before hell fully breaks loose, and the ideal type of entertainment to watch in group with beer and pizza (or at a Film Festival after midnight, like I did). The gore and make-up effects are very professionally handled and the film definitely contains some of the nastiest murder scenes I've seen in a slasher since a long time. Just to give a few examples, there's a girl whose jaw is ripped off and another poor girl has her whole head squished underneath the wheel of a tractor. Ouch! After Glen Jacobs in "See No Evil", Nathan Jones is another wrestler to depict a crazed killer in a gory horror movie. I can easily understand writer/director Chris Sun's choice to cast Nathan Jones, considering his gigantic posture and menacing grimaces. "Charlie's Farm" represents purely rancid and shameless trashy horror entertainment from Down Under; nothing more and certainly nothing less.

The low rating of this movie motivated me to post my first ever review ,,, It is truly one of the best horror movies I've seen! It takes quite a lot to creep me out & this one actually scared me ... Special effects were pretty good...especially the riverbank scene ...I'm a long time ER Nurse & I'm pretty picky when it comes to gore scenes ...This particular segment was pretty realistic anatomically ( ask me about the man & the Filter Queen Vacuum accident / the kid & the dog & the peanut butter ) ...There's also a "jaw " incident that looked quite authentic. I love these Australian movies because there is an element of psychotic behaviour that lends plausibility to the plot. Unlike Vampires & Demons, this could actually happen! If you liked High Tension & Wolf Creek, you'll love this one!

Few of the main reasons I sat through this movie was hearing good things about it from friends and also being a huge horror buff, especially the slashers plus Kane Hodder, one of my favorite horror movie actors comes out. Who doesn't love him as Jason Voorhees and Victor Crowley? This movie while having a predictable plot and mediocre acting at best, didn't suck as much as I expected it to. Some scenes surprisingly shocked me despite the editing being very choppy and slow, the kills are very gorish and fantastic which is a must for any slasher. The first hour of the story dragged on for wayyy too long and took awhile to pickup the kills and action but Nathan Jones gives a fine performance as Charlie and Tara Reid and the rest of the actors are fine. I appreciate the writers giving a backstory to Charlie but when a slasher movie drags on for a whole hour before getting to the kills it becomes pretty generic.

A solid 5/10, nothing special but definitely worth watching a couple of times especially if you're a horror fan.

As films go, this was a 5 but as horror films go, this was a 6. This really had everything you would want from a slasher flick: a menacing and monstrous baddie with a sad and weird backstory, a variety of kills and plenty of gore and creepy moments in eerie settings. This isn't one of the great Australian horror films but it is a dependably good one. It does everything you want it to. The build up is nicely paced and then it just kicks off and doesn't relent until it ends.

One of the things I really liked about this film was that it was a horror that wasn't filled with teens and tweens unlike a lot of films in the genre these days.

It was an enjoyable watch and a good way to fill the late night. If you like your horror films then I'd recommend this one to you.