Billy Club

Fifteen years after a gruesome triple homicide devastated their Little League baseball team, four friends reunite to commemorate their dead coach and fallen teammates. A mystery unfolds as the secrets from their past return to haunt them and a vengeful killer, hidden by an antique umpire's mask, returns to even the score.

I saw this film as part of the Oshkosh Horror Film Festival and was drawn to it by the fact it was filmed in Wisconsin and many of those involved were from Milwaukee. I knew nothing about it beyond that, and had no expectations. For the most part, I was quite pleased.

Being a fan of slashers, I love the whole plot of a past crime being avenged years later by a masked killer. And then you throw in the mystery of the killer himself -- is it the same guy as years ago? An imposter? Why now? This is always good.

Next, you throw in a good group of actors, some excellent direction and camera work, and plenty of humor. This is a winner any way you slice it. Of the two big Wisconsin films this year (the other being "Don't Go To The Reunion", which also featured Nick Sommer who wrote-directed-starred in this film) this was the one that really hit a home run. (I say that with all due respect to "Reunion", which is itself a fine movie with great kills and humor and was made by two wonderful gentlemen.)

My biggest critique would have to be the flashbacks. From a Q&A, I gathered that the "modern day" (1990s) footage was shot first and the flashbacks were spliced in later. I feel like some it slowed the pace down. The kid parts were alright, but the hospital scenes just seemed to drag a bit and did not add the psychological angle the filmmakers were looking for.

You should definitely see this, though. A few snags here and there do not detract from this being a slasher that bats over .500 in a subgenre that rarely hits .333, if you know what I mean. Nick Sommer is a man to watch out for. First "Blood Junkie" (available from Troma), then this... who knows what is next?

Not horrible and not good. And nowhere near great or bad enough to be trashy campy treasure. Some nice use of 1990's nostalgic microfilm and a CD jukebox. Back before the internet murdered everything and made most things available in your home and at your fingertips instantly. A funny pizza delivery scene killing with the wrong suspect being arrested by cops and fleeing away in his Bryan Cranston tighty whiteys. Kudos to the ATV go-pro hallucination scene that came out of left field and was a home run. Most of the kills were professional and impressive.

To harsh to call the filmmakers "wannabes" or fugazi because their heart was in the right place. But if I watch one more formulaic clichéd flashback than I will bash myself in the head with a baseball bat full of rusty nails.

Nothing real original a Graduation Day (1981) / Some Guy Who Kills People (2011) ripoff played out with a baseball theme. And a crazy baseball horror movie called Catcher (1998) seemed to inspire a few scenes as well. Just passing my opinion to fellow movie lovers to skip this one like a rock and get your jolly ranchers elsewhere. Time available to watch our beloved films is so precious.

Nobody likes to trash somebody's art. These guys obviously love movies. Fanboys love them so much we all dream of making one or two. But at the end of the day some of us were just born to watch them.

Trevor Layne Movies & Candy

Most great indie horror films are a testament to hard work, a good script, and great cast in spite of lesser production values and a series of technical flaws. There's potential in them even if they need a fresh coat of paint. Billy Club is, surprisingly, the opposite.

Billy Club looks like a million bucks. There's no doubt the people behind this movie worked hard, long hours to make this movie look as professional and polished as its low budget would allow. Framing and angles are inventive and cinematic and most sound cues are crisp and well-mixed.

Billy Club should be a head above the rest of these low budget slasher flicks, but it's not. Despite the impressive glow up, this owes more to the no-budget absurd straight to video slashers of the early 2000s than any of the golden age classics like My Bloody Valentine or Prom Night.

As a concept, Billy Club seems promising. You see, in the early 80's, a few kids and their baseball coach were found murdered on the field and a crazy kid named Billy was sent away for it. Years later, he's let go from the nuthouse and starts taking out the rest of his surviving teammates because they once pulled a near-deadly prank on him. He's actually starting to make sense and I can understand his reasonings. These people are awful.

Billy Club suffers from that ever-present likability problem most post-2000 slasher flicks have. No one in this movie is worth caring about and, even if they are, they end up doing something incredibly stupid just seconds later. The amount of characters in this film who get out of a car in a secluded area and just start walking into the woods for seemingly no reason is staggering. You can feel the screenwriters realizing they desperately need to find a reason to get these characters alone, but this was the best they could come up with. And who can blame them? With characters as shallow as this, that probably was the thing that made the most sense for them at that point in the story.

What Billy Club does get right, it really gets right. The kill scenes are incredibly grisly and there are a few unforgettable images throughout the film. When the film's heroine comes across a macabre art installation of her friends at a secluded lake, you'll be hard pressed to not gasp in awe. It's a truly unforgettable image and any film is lucky to possess at least one of those, so you can't write Billy Club off completely.

It could have used another draft or two before production, but Billy Club does have its saving graces.

Impressively fair slasher.

Can someone tell me if this was inspired by another film with a similar plot?

There was another indie slasher that began with a group of cruel kids on a baseball field who teased another youngster. When the boy attempted to catch a fly ball hit out of the field, he was struck by a car. The movie (that looks similar to this one) is about these same cruel kids who are all grown up years later and are reunited at a bed and breakfast cabin and begin receiving strange threats from a mystery man who stalks them. Very scary and intensifying indie Thriller with a similar plot to "Billy Club".

The problem with this film is that it's scarce. I don't remember if it was part of a Horror Anthology or actual indie movie that possibly inspired Billy Club.

Can anyone remember this scarce film?

Firstly I must say that I thought that this movie was excellent and makes me wonder why I didn't hear about this sooner than I did. For a start for an independent feature it looks so stylish and has excellent production values that it looks just like a big budget Hollywood feature. So for a start well done to the directors and writers Drew Rosas and Nick Sommer for making something that pleases horror/slasher fans such as me.

The plot itself isn't anything original but that doesn't matter as long as it's interesting and engaging enough for the viewer to keep interested all the way through. Here we get a group of old friends reuniting from their childhood days of being in a little league team, where their coach and some of their teammates were murdered by a boy named Billy who got sent to an insane asylum. But now somebody has been hunting down and killing the remaining members of that team, could it be Billy back for revenge, who knows.

To be honest I don't think that I've seen that many baseball themed slashers (the only one that comes to mind was 1998's "The Catcher") which I don't really remember all that well. But this comes as a really strong entry with a decent cast, namely from the 4 main leads were really strong and likable and I liked how the first half developed them, and then the 2nd half of the movie that's where things really take off, I really liked the homage scene where it showed the killer creating his weapon adding nails and a blade to his baseball bat, which was really cool and effective. Then of course the kills which were gory and well handled, and also left me wanting more and even the mystery surrounding the killer was again mind blowing and does keep the viewer guessing until the very end.

All in all "Billy Club" is a definite must see for any horror/slasher fans, it has a good story, engaging characters and gory kills which is basically everything you need and want in a movie of this genre.