I pick up these multi movie packs hoping to get that little gem. I don't have any expectations from these movies and that way I'm rarely disappointed. Sleazy Slashers is a collection of 4 low budget movies from Brentwood Home Video. The set came out back in 2004 and each movie has a side of a pair of two sided discs. Nowadays the company would put all four movies on a DVD9. I just got a Western set with 20 movies on 3 discs. I haven't looked at it to know what that's like.
Psycho Scarecrow is Canadian film from 1996. Some cops respond to a suicide. A young woman has jumped out of an apartment. They find a tape recorder and hear her story. She went with 4 other young adults on an excursion. On the way their car dies and then their friend dies. They hide the body in a scarecrow as sensible people would. The guy with the car gets mad at the battery and throws it away. He steals one from a nearby farm and while he's gone one of the two women is chopped to death by an axe wielding maniac with a pumpkin for a head. Another guy gets sticks in his eyes. There's plenty of running through cornfields and woods, plus a good amount of hiding or snooping in farm buildings. The action moves to the city but the cops fast forward the tape so we don't know what happened then. It has a weak ending and it's not that gem I was looking for, not in anyway. You can check it out on YouTube at the link above.
Dweller is a 2002 low budget alien visitation movie by the Polonia Brothers. I hadn't heard of the Polonia Brothers but the DVD box says the movie is in their tradition. I guess that's a bad tradition because the movie is none too good. Worse than the Canadian movie, that's for sure. One of the Polonia Brothers died and the living brother hooked up with Brent Piper to make films with. I've liked some of Brett's work in the past. I don't think I've seen any of the Brothers films but this one. No matter. Dweller is short, only 67 minutes, but it still drags along. There are three robbers hiding in the woods, they encounter an alien crashed on the Earth. The alien kills anyone that comes near it. Lots of shots of the woods. I can't recommend it to pretty much anyone, not when there are plenty of better films to see first.
Night Thirst is another of the Polonia Brothers films, also from 2002. Two in one night, can I take it, sure, I'm tough. This movie has monster SFX by Brett Piper and sadly they aren't very good. Or, maybe they are for the budget. Like the other PB movie this one has a lot of amateur actors, some lumpy dialog and plenty of found sets. Some guy comes to a nerdy guy's house looking for the phone. He tells the nerd his truck is broken down. While waiting help he tells the nerd a story about night thirst. Now we follow some lady around while she talks about being $25,000 richer. She arrives at a house, gets drugged and wakes up in a bed. She stabs the monster then commits suicide. The monster POV is almost like the alien POV in the other movie. I guess once you figure out an effect you might as well stick to it. Now the two guys are on the porch and the trucker tells the story of a cadaver that wouldn't stay dead and another about a guy who goes into the black forest to take pictures. The guy in the woods encounters some monster puppets that weren't very convincing and a guy in a cloak with a bad rubber monster face. The last tale is about a murderous Santa in July. He must be hot in that suit and all that hair. A little girl sees him but Santa's never there when she gets her dad. Santa slaughters the dad and his girlfriend and the little girl thanks him. Dad was kind of dick, not that he needed to be killed. The trucker turns out to be a vampire and the nerd turns out to be a werewolf. Wow, never seen of that before. Another movie with nothing much going for it.
Backwoods is a 2001 film and it's definitely the weird one of the bunch. Not good, just weird. A woman (a man in drag) is in the woods with a guy and they have a quickie in the trees. The man runs off after he comes. The movie cuts to 30 years later, mom's still wearing the same dress and she's still carrying the baby. He's soon born, as a full size man, and mom gets a new dress. The man size baby is writer David C Hayes. He doesn't do either job that well. Grant Woodhill is the director and he's not so good either. He can't stop moving the camera and that got annoying quickly. Mom is killed by some teens and baby gets a visit from Mangina. That's a naked guy with his cock tucked between his legs wearing a fright mask. All his scenes are screwed with visually. Baby takes mom's clothes and wig and goes after the teens. He kills random strangers that happen to be in his path. This movie also uses a strange effect POV shot for the baby guy. There are shots where the movie breaks through the fourth wall and characters talks to the viewer. They aren't very funny or anything. The movie meanders in the woods while baby man picks off the teens. Sometimes I was sighing, watching the blue bar on VLC player and wondering why it was moving so slowly. When it gets to 64 minutes the movie starts moving backwards at high speed like a tape being rewound. Not for any apparent reason that I could see. I did think they were desperate to get over 70 minutes. The rewind used up a couple of minutes and the 5 minutes of credits put the movie just over 71 minutes long.
Well, that 4 movie set sure was below average. If you see it, avoid it. Lucky for me I only paid a couple of bucks for it. Learn from that wasted cash.
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