Honey Britches

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.

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.

(1971) Demented Death Farm Massacre/ Honey Britches THRILLER/ COMEDY DRAMA

Co-produced and directed by Donn Davison that has four convicts on the run from the police riding their jeep until it runs out of gas. Leading the group is Phillip Courtney (Jim Peck) and his girlfriend, Karen (Trudy Moore) and Kirk Taylor ( Mike Coolik) and his girlfriend, Suzanne (Pepper Thurston) as their jeep runs out of gas. They are then forced to walk and soon stumble onto a farm with a single hillbilly wife, Reba Sue Craven (Ashley Brooke) waiting at home for her husband, Horlon (George Ellis). Complicating matters is when one of the criminals holds them hostage and begins to seduce Horlon's wife, Reba Sue The movie has poor acting, low budget, using an idea used a dozen times, and just when one presumes there is nudity in there, there is perhaps a breast scene and that is basically it.

I bought this movie, as in paid over 10 English pounds for a film called Demented Death Farm Massacre: The Movie. I got Honey Britches. Okay, let that sum the disappointment in one line? The blurb sounded a total undiscovered gem, with the desperate Jewel Thieves hiding out with a clan of psychotic rednecks - ends in a brutal battle for survival.. Sounded almost like a wild combo of Dusk till Dawn and the Chainsaw massacre! The phrase polishing a turd springs to mind. Unfortunately, in the instance of buying videos a turd can be polished very nicely and sold under a groovy title to unsuspecting horror fans. To say the blurb is misleading would be an understatement. Lame people can be jewel thieves too.. just as psychotic rednecks can be goofy rather than aggressive... ARRRRGHGGGHHHHH

LAME LOSER JEWEL THIEVES VS GOOFY JERK OFF RETARD FARMERS WHO DON'T KNOW A CHAINSAW FROM A MICROWAVE!!!!

For the record, this movie was released in the UK as Demented Death Farm Massacre The Movie. Why, I have no idea.

If you too ended up seeing this, please accept my commiserations... If you are reading up on this, please heed my warnings and avoid like the plague.. this doesn't have a 1.7 mark for nothing!!! (Probably worse than that coz its about to get a 1 from me!!!)