Lumberjack Man

I have nothing to spoil here because the story is bland, basic, and you've seen it before. What I will say is that this movie is one the strangest movies I've seen in many years. It's very anti-female, slicing and dicing young women relentlessly. It also features barely legal porn stars who think they can act, dancing and prancing with their breast swinging in the air. Several scenes with ugly males hooking up with hot females, all of them showing T and A before they get decapitated, impaled, or whatever. And the girls totally look underage, which is either enticing or bothersome. Acting is high school level. Violence is sometimes dramatically approached, not comedic, and protracted and overdone. It makes the whole experience very odd. Several homosexual references made to both sexes. It's just a horrible movie. BUT, it will stay on my DVR only because of the eye-candy. Call me a hypocrite. 4 stars for the gorgeous young ladies. 0 for the movie. itself.

A bunch of rather older-looking kids travel to a Christian camp out in the woods. There's a lot of painful silliness the bus. Once they arrive we meet their ridiculous leader, a pretty girl also in charge, and the cook(?). It's not long before they start taking their clothes off and the marijuana jokes begin. For some reason only one pair of girls seem to be Christian, the rest not so much. Meanwhile some stranger is traveling in the direction of the camp. He stops at the park ranger office to warn that everyone is going to die and they should evacuate immediately. As evidence he offers some old newspaper clippings.

But of course he's right. By now someone or something dragging some large-pancake cart has started killing kids. It takes a while before the guy who's some researcher arrives at the camp and warns them. At that point we learn who the killer is and why he kills. It's a rather ridiculous explanation that I won't give here. Soon enough the killer arrives in the middle of dining hall and the mayhem is on. At this point the movie decides who the lead characters are and those will have figure out a way to eliminate this killer for good.

I really like the spirit in which this movie was made. I'm all for 80's-style raunchy teen slasher flicks. But as often happens, they had to ruin it by making it a parody/comedy. One movie-making convention seems to be that if you combine teens and violence you have to mask it as a comedy. Unfortunately making comedy and even more so, parody, is far more challenging than straight-forward horror. There are couple of good lines though.

Lumberjack Man is 1:45 hours--at least 15 minutes too long, a strange decision when you don't have a lot of budget. Another convention of low-budget movie-making is that you've got to have at least one big name in your cast. In this case it's Michael Madsen who does a good job, not taking the role too seriously. The rest of the main cast does surprisingly well. All of them give committed performances. The problem is the silliness factor, not the acting. One weakness of this movie is that it really doesn't give us a lead character for which to care. Of course, it's the girl who doesn't take her clothes off who will end up being the lead, but for most of the movie, she isn't. For a movie like this, the cast isn't particularly attractive. Brina Palencia in some tertiary role is lovely though. Then there are some porn stars here for some reason.

I'm very conflicted about this movie. I enjoyed the gore, violence, and nudity but hated the goofiness. The movie-makers have some talent and enthusiasm but botched it.

Very like what was said with 'Knucklebones', have an appreciation for black comedy and horror (and just as much when mixed together) and the concept was kind of interesting. So although expectations were far from high, considering the general standard of low budget films seen recently, part of me was hoping that 'Lumberjack Man' would be at least tolerable.

There are definitely worse films than 'Lumberjack Man', of the horror genre and overall, and it is not even close to being one of the worst, let alone the worst, low budget films seen recently. That on the other hand doesn't make it good, it does far too little with the potential it had in the concept and it doesn't even have enough to make it tolerable. There is little engaging and it is cheesy as sin.

'Lumberjack Man's' least bad component was the music. There was something somewhat ominous about it and it does occasionally give a suspenseful touch.

Sadly, that is pretty much the only praise to give. The pace very badly lumbers, which really makes the film dull, and it is not always easy to figure out what is going on because the story is just so thin and tonally weird.

Regarding the villain, there is nothing surprising or sinister. Actually comes over more as silly and cheesy in behaviour and the goofy look. The lack of any atmosphere, let alone tension and suspense, is a hindrance as is the too long by half an hour length.

As is the incredibly bad writing. Very stilted and induces too often some unintentional laughs. There were attempts at dark humour, but it was not dark or sharp enough and was instead silly and clumsy. Madsen's explanation is just ridiculous.

Even worse is the acting, with beyond description terrible performances from the whole younger cast and it even makes Michael Madsen, clearly phoning in and either doing the film for money or as a favour, look bad. The characters are incredibly annoying and far from interesting, there is no development and the way they behave too often is stupid and illogical.

The production values all round look cheap, especially the haphazard editing. The story has nothing engaging, suspenseful or scary, it's just far-fetched to an intelligence insulting degree, incredibly dull due to trying to stretch things out to pad the too long length and just too bland. Anything done to try and spice up the supposedly scary moments came over as overdone and gratuitous.

Overall, very poor in almost every single area. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Maybe you have to be in the right mood with the right taste in comedy to enjoy this movie, which is why I think many other reviews are negative. But dang it if I wasn't in the right mood with the right taste in comedy. That doesn't make it a great movie, but it was just the right amount of blood, boobs, and genuine chuckles that I wanted.

My advice for enjoying it would be not to expect a good horror movie. It's a decent comedy that alternates between self-aware mockery and nonsensical goofiness (though it's not always 100% clear if it's on purpose).

I'd love to hear a director's commentary on this. I'm sure it would be a lot of: "We don't know why we did it this way, but it was funny." or "This didn't quite work, but we left it in." "They didn't have lines, so we let them say whatever."

Clocking in at an hour and 45 minutes, Lumberjack Man is way too long for a slasher flick. I never thought I'd say this, but it's a case of "too much tits, not enough gore." The film's filler time is devoted to sexual content to the point of over-saturation. There's a scene where two campers watch a counselor strip, dance, and rub lotion on herself for what feels like ten minutes. It especially becomes evident towards the end, the final confrontation dragging on and on. It accentuated the character's stupidity with every pitiful attempt at comedy.

Every scene is extended to either prolong on-screen nudity or exaggerate comedic delivery. Speaking of which...

Despite being a horror comedy, the movie's humor is hit-or-miss. Most of the jokes are overly-long, sexual, and reliant on absurdity. It gets repetitive quickly. Most of my laughs came from the kills, of which some were quite funny and inventive, but they were few and far between. Which is a shame because the cast is larger than most camp slashers.

I also had a lot of problems with the characters. Bumbling, annoying and unlikable.

It's technically functional, sure, but that does nothing to fix how insipid this movie is. In short, Lumberjack Man is an unbalanced, lukewarm, boring film, inferior to other horror comedy films. I suggest skipping it and watching The Final Girls, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Behind the Mask, Severance, Stage Fright, or Club Dread.