Splatter Farm

When one goes to see your regular, run-of-the-mill movie in theatres or on video, it can be expected that it wll be sanitized for our protection. Whether it be censors or nervous movie studios, it'll be tame and boring. With the excellent "Splatter Farm," however, everything is home-made video delight and anything is possible. So I say, seek this movie out and enjoy its unpredictability!

I have been watching obscure horror movies for years and years. I have seen many of the unknown classics, like WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE, BLOODBATH IN PSYCHO TOWN, and HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY FIVE. But NO movie--no matter how crazy, no matter how sick, or no matter how deranged--could've possibly prepared me for the Polonia Brothers' SPLATTER FARM.

Take it from me: you have never seen anything like this movie, and you never ever will. No other production could possibly be more nauseating, more shocking, and more badly-produced than this one. Also, no other production could possibly be cheaper, as SPLATTER FARM has absolutely NO budget (And when I say "no budget", I mean just that... Not $20000, not $1000, not even $200... But ZERO DOLLARS!).

So what exactly is this home-made, shot-on-video masterpiece about? Well, it's hard to say exactly, but I'll give it a go: teenage twins Joseph and Alan go to stay with their lonely (and really, really old) Aunt Lacy, who aside from having necrophilic tendencies with her deceased husband, lusts after her nephew Alan. During their visit, they notice their Aunt's perverted homosexual groundskeeper (Jeremy, played brilliantly by Todd Rimatti) has been exhibiting some rather strange behavior. It seems Jeremy has a bad habit of killing the townsfolk, dismembering them, and storing their body parts in his barn to use for sexual gratification later on. The boys are unable to get ahold of anybody on the outside, and now feel that their lives are in danger, so they begin to take charge of the situation. And that's when it really, REALLLLLY gets ugly.

Does it sound f'ed up? Well, lemme tell ya: I can't even BEGIN to emphasize just how f'ed up this movie is, and just how sickeningly far it goes. In fact, I was so awestruck by this little feature that I soon grew an unhealthy obsession with it. I did as much research as I could on this little obscurity and gathered up every scrap of information I could find. But, for the most part, its production, its actors, and how it somehow got made and distributed in the first place are still a nagging enigma to me. I have watched it several times with numerous people, all of whom were speechless and appalled as the story unfolded. One of my friends, Paul, has also fallen in mad love with SPLATTER FARM and has written a review on this web site as well. Because of this movie I have developed a deep appreciation for the Polonia Brothers and their many bizarre films. I would love to meet them some day, for I am sure they are the sole reason I exist.

PLEASE SEEK OUT AND WATCH THIS MOVIE. You might not like it (in fact, I'm pretty sure you won't), but you WILL be entertained by it, and it will indeed shock the living hell out of you. And, as I stated earlier, you will never see anything like it for the rest of your meaningless, pitiful existence. Trust me.

My fellow IMDb reprobates Woodyanders, Hey_Sweden, HumanoidOfFlesh, EVOL666, slayrrr666 and Tromafreak have already seen and commented on this shot-on-VHS gore-fest. I'm so late to the party, but glad I made it eventually: Splatter Farm is technically inept in every department, with some of the worst acting this side of a preschool nativity play, but it's clearly a labour of love by first time writers/directors John and Mark Polonia, and it doesn't hold back on the graphic filth and depravity. Good times!

The Polonias also star in this surprisingly squalid debut, as brothers Joseph and Alan, who are invited by their Aunt Lacey (Marion Costly) to spend the summer on her farm, the boys blissfully unaware of the perversion and violence that awaits them. Aunt Lacey is a twisted old dear whose barn is home to the rotting corpse of her husband Ray (who died in a freak 'axe-cident'). Ray's pecker has long since turned to dust, so lonely Aunt Lacey is only too happy to have two handsome, strapping young men* come to stay at her home, even if they are her nephews. Even more disturbed than incestuous Aunt Lacey is her handyman Jeremy (Todd Michael Smith), who murders passers-by, wears their skin Leatherface-style, and uses body parts to satisfy his sexual urges (in one scene, he uses a victim's severed head to give himself oral pleasure, beating Haute Tension to the punch by 16 years).

In the days that follow, the lads become increasingly suspicious about the bizarre behaviour of Aunt Lacey and Jeremy, and decide to investigate; meanwhile, one of the lads has a dream in which he craps out a carving knife while sat on the toilet (we've all had that one, right?). Aunt Lacey eventually 'roofies' and rapes Alan, which is most unsavoury, but the other brother gets it worse: after knocking Joseph unconscious and giving him a quick BJ, Jeremy ties the poor bloke up in the barn, wakes him up by urinating on him, flips him over, yanks down his pants, fists him, smears faeces on his face, pokes him with a pitchfork, and then buries him alive! Bearing in mind that this is a home-made shot-on-video film, this is staggeringly bold stuff, John Polonia even getting his meat and two veg out for the camera.

Clearly inspired by The Texas Chain Saw Massace, but without any of that film's class and style, Splatter Farm is micro-budgeted messed-up madness designed to shock, and as such, is unmissable viewing for fans of deliberately offensive z-grade trash. Ignore the movie's many obvious shortcomings - the crude direction, dreadful writing, diabolical editing, awful sound quality, and Marion Costly's all-time-worst performance - and have fun wallowing in the filth and cheapjack gore brought to you by the Polonias, who make up for their lack of film-making skills with sheer enthusiasm and gross-out excess (the film closes with a demented plot twist, a shot-gun blast to a head, and a full body explosion, ferchristsakes!)

A hard one to rate - it's a 1/10 in terms of technical proficiency, but 10/10 for lunacy. So a 5.5/10 seems fair (rounded up to 6 for IMDb).

*I jest, of course: the Polonias are the epitomy of nerdishness and I've seen more meat on a baby sparrow.

There is a scene in "Splatter Farm" where, after making a ghastly discovery in a barn, one of our twin protagonists stumbles outside and vomits. He runs off, and a delighted cat runs over and we get an up-close scene of him happily lapping it up. He really digs in to them chunks of turnip! I could say that this sums up the debut film from the infamous Polonia brothers but I would be lying. Not when there are multiple scenes of dismemberment, some incest and torture to boot. All cheaply done, I may add, but very visceral. Which is not to say that "Splatter Farm" is a dismissible, straight-to-video exploitation film. On the contrary, it is quit the shocker, and is high on the creative energy of the Polonia brothers, who wrote the script, starred and directed along with their pal Todd Smith.

The film sees foul-mouthed brothers Alan and Joseph driving out in to the countryside to spend the summer at their Aunt's farm. She is a disgusting old pervert of a woman, who can't take her eyes off of these two young men, even though they are her nephews! Alan and Joseph are perturbed by the half-wit and creepy handyman that their auntie has plodding around the farm and lurking around the house. "What exactly does he do around here?" one of the brothers demands, in one of many hilarious outbursts. Well, when he isn't listlessly hacking weeds around the farm, Jeremy is exuberantly hacking people to pieces and making masks and ornaments out of their dead bodies (Such a blatant "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" rip-off but I'll let it slide). Pretty soon, the brothers find that they are on Jeremy's radar as well as their auntie's, and they'll be doing well to survive the week out here, let alone the entire summer.

Although the special effects are outrageously cheap, they are actually effective and I found some scenes stomach-churning. I believe the Polonia brothers were only about 19 when they made this, and you can see that they really had a flare for it and what they lacked in budget and experience, they more than made-up for when it came to visceral horror. The auntie is one of the most naturally terrifying and disgusting characters I've ever come across, so well done Marion Costly for that performance.

First off.. let me state. I am a fan of cheesy horror movies... I have made many "home movie" type videos with friends. So... to me this was a fun ride... At times I could not really pick out what was so stimulating about it though. The acting is beyond horrible (but amusingly humorous), the effects are .. well... to tell the truth I have seen worse... somehow the movie was able to keep my interest, but I cannot say it was an extremely fast paced ride. This film is bizarre in this respect.. I have become harder and harder to entertain, but this movie.. well... kept me entertained... I think it does what most "low budget" / "no budget" movies should do. It understood that it did not have to fill a 90 to 120 minute time slot in order to be considered a film. Most movies in this category feel they must stretch the story out so thin that you could see through it or at least beg for it to be over... At about 75 minutes in length it was not too bad... To me as I ponder my interest in this movie, I think it may be the fact it readily appears as a "home video" and because of that aspect, lends itself to an almost voyeuristic quality while viewing... there are some sick things that go on through this movie and I believe the timing of these events must be perfect.