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Ginose
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Posted: April 24, 2011 at 3:42pm
Though I've already sang Chad Ferrin's praises from the highest mountain-tops numerous times (and, quite blatantly with my review of "Unspeakable"), but I feel I've never really dabbled in the things I dislike about his work, a subject I ignore for most directors because I am a bitch, but I think with his last two films ("Someone's Knocking At the Door" and the reviewed) a few of these annoying traits of his are growing more obvious with the more polished his productions have become.
Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. This review marks a benchmark for me, it being the first time I've ever written a holiday review in time for the goddamned holiday, so I'll go on with a bit of my thoughts for the film: It's an Easter slasher film. A grimy, gory, nasty slasher film, that so happens to tie in with this holiday, but that's exactly what I was expecting from Ferrin's work: A brutal film with enough cleverness to keep you wondering throughout. Perhaps not quite as extreme or disgusting as the works before or after it, but it has enough character to stand out from most, if not all of the traditional gore-fare we see in this day and age.
Nicholas is a young boy (well, a 16 year-old special child) who absolutely adores Easter. It's his favorite time of the year and he always eagerly celebrates it with his adoring mother, who cares for him more than anything (especially since the death of his father at such a young age). This year things seem a bit different, though: mommy has a new boyfriend, whom Nicholas doesn't trust in the least, but puts his reservations aside for his mother's sake. Things seem to come together a bit better for him when, on Easter's eve, a kindly vagrant gives him (in exchange for some recyclables) a pet rabbit, whom Nicholas is instantly in love with (seeing it as his Easter bunny). All seems well, until his mother is called in for a double shift on Easter day, not only leaving him without her on the day he treasures his time with her the most, but leaving him in the care of her new boyfriend who is... not a nice man. Well, things only get worse from there when a masked killer shows up and starts doing away with all of the "bad things" entering Nicky's life. All of them.
As we can see this is a fairly average plot and set-up for a slasher film, but...well, the execution is far more morbid and foul then I would have expected from such a premise. This, however, is common ground for the bizarrely affecting and morbid works of Chad Ferrin, taking a simple grindhouse-style exploitation film idea, like this, and turning it into something more could certainly be no easy task, but it flowed quite brilliantly; from the disgusting build-up to the the first kill and all the action that follows, this was certainly a pleasant treat for the ol' basket.
On the immense plus side to my expectations the performances were all actually quite good and worked well in the aesthetic. The humorous bits were delivered without a bit of misplacement, and when it got down to the grit, it made sure to do so with a jarring amount of seriousness. Special points also has to go to b-film veteran and Troma alumni Tent Haaga working as both the film's producer and bit role, that he filled perfectly.
Now, to the things I didn't like and, nearly all of this comes from Ferrin's filmmaking style: The man will make a great build into a great horror movie, but will oh so unsubtly force in a strong-held personal or social message that he felt the need to get across. In and of itself? Nothing unusual. This, however, only works when it is PART OF THE STORY... He quite successfully brought it into the film "The Ghouls", by making the entire film a commentary about the media-saturation of the day and age, and he got it down, for the most part, in his first film "Unspeakable" but this... this just weaseled its way in so unreasonably that there was no way to not laugh at it. No, it wasn't a gag, either. Hell, even this one wasn't as bad as it was in his next film, in which it practically contradicts everything that happened throughout the course of the film.
Eh, that bit of unpleasantness aside, this is a fantastic indie-slasher film, and one of the best things that this holiday had to offer for me. Was it worth the fucking four-year wait to get a proper DVD released? Fuck no. But that's just not fair to the filmmakers, and has nothing to do with the quality of the film, proper, of that be assured. It's gory, and brutal and just all around a depraved treat, with a bit of a shock ending that I was fairly surprised by. It's not a deep or challenging film, like his other works, but a great damned time in front of the tube.
8.8/10.
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