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"The Butcher" DVD
If you happen to be in
the mood for nothing special, if you find yourself in the midst
of the video store looking to not be challenged, or not have anything
new to deal with, or nothing in particular to be scared by, but
you just want a big loud gory romp with a plot so antique it could
be featured on PBS, then go ahead, and grab that copy of "The
Butcher" off the shelf.
So what we have here
plotwise is six college students stranded on the road. In the middle
of the night. Following a car accident. Yeah, you can already tell
what's going to happen here, now can't you? They're going to find
an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the night because their
cell phones don't work in the middle of nowhere they've found themselves
in (though as it turns out, no one seems to have brought one along
with them for a change), and the abandoned farmhouse in question
isn't as abandoned as anyone thought it was. Because the owner is
a crazy homicidal weapon-wielding maniac prepared to turn them all
into an assortment of chewy bite-sized pieces, possibly to eat them.
If it sounds familiar,
it's because it is.
Right down to the multiple
lesbian makeout sessions in the first five minutes. And the incredible
display of driving idiocy that leads them to become stranded in
the first place. And an even better display of idiocy that allows
the first death by overhanging tree branch to the solar plexus to
take place in the first TEN minutes.
Despite the sheer familiarity
of "The Butcher", I do have to admit that I've never seen
this much idiocy in one movie. Every stupid thing these half-dozen
morons could rally together, they do. They flash and taunt the serial
killer. They drive around with people stuck out of sunroofs. They
get blind drunk immediately after the first person gets killed.
And then, at the twenty
one minute twenty two second mark, the biggest insult to our intelligence
comes into play so far when Mark, one of the main idiots, says:
"Don't you watch scary movies? Bad shit always happens inside
the creepy farmhouse." Not only does the movie know that it
makes use of every threadbare cliche the horror movie genre has
to offer, it also has the gigantic brass ones to tell us about them!
What cliches, you might
ask? Well, despite the ones I've already laid out, how about portraying
the sheer balls-out idiocy of sticking around a seemingly-abandoned
farmhouse after a girl with no tongue cuts her wrists on a bottle
just so she can write "hell" on the nearest wall in big
bloody letters? Catch that little beauty at the twenty nine minute
twenty second mark.
Or the inspired stupidity
of running into the killer's house at thirty eight minutes seven
seconds.
Although, and I will
give them some begrudging respect after the thirty eight minute
seven second mark, I have seen very few scenarios where the killer
is actually locked out of his house. Though they don't manage to
do very well with this surprising advantage....
And for once, in a surprisingly
strange twist, the cops aren't actually complicit with the family
of lunatics living out in the middle of nowhere. Usually, that's
the so-called twist--that the cops are working with or otherwise
related to the killers, but this time, the cops actually aren't
related.
The ending is home to
a couple clever twists, and a couple of decent-sized plot holes,
but nothing worth writing home about.
The special features
include English and Spanish subtitles, and trailers for "Komodo
Vs. Cobra", "After Sundown", and "Santeria:
The Soul Possessed".
All in all, "The
Butcher" accomplishes nothing new, but does it in a fashion
that's at least passable. It's worth your time to pick it up, but
only if you're not looking for anything special.
The
Butcher
**
DVD
Directed by Edward Gorsuch
Written by Ellis Walker
Starring Catherine Wreford, Tom Nagel, Myiea Coy, Alan Ritchson
Produced by Michael Feifer
84 mins
R
2006
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