Butchered (2003)

a.k.a. The Hazing

Director: Joe Castro

Screenplay: Eric Spudic

Cast: Susan Smythe as Lynette; Juliet Bradford as Barbara; Phoebe Dollar as Jenny; Elina Madison as Daphne; Christopher Michaels as Anthony; Adam Crone as Darren; David Alan Graf as Andrew Braxus; Ben Belack as Brent

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #157

 

Yeah, that's a big girl alright.

Butchered is not a good film. Actually, it is so bland that, whilst painful to see, I now consider The Summer of the Massacre (2011) from practical effects artist and filmmaker Joe Castro to be at least distinct. Near Death (2004) looks better now because it had moments and a personality. Butchered, well, at this point for me comes from a fondness for these low budget horror films, and for everyone who reaches this point as I have, there is a joy to these films as there is in the best of cinema, genre or not, and when that expectation for the minimum is not met, it feels unbearable. The worst thing is when a production is bland, does not feel like its creators were investing their personality, and feel pointless to have made regardless of resources.

The premise is a lot of tropes common in horror and will always be used unless human society changes drastically - a women's fraternity, two women here the sole figures representing it due to (understandable) budgetary restraints, testing two new people who want to join by having them stay in a creepy funhouse for a night. Said funhouse happens to have a monstrous giant woman inside killing people and generally haunting the location in secret rooms. The problem arises when this story is merely told as generically as possible.

The period before the main plot starts properly is much more interesting as a result. The frat sisters' boyfriends are perverts, secretly filming them changing or in the shower with the plan to extend these secret camera to the whole campus, yet still with these two male actors with their shirts off for pure beefcake only. There is the recreation of the opening from John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), the stalking scene done through a clown mask, reinterpreted by digital manipulation of the screen so you have only two eyehole sized images on the screen. You also learn, in a challenge before the funhouse, how uncomfortable (depending on the context) it could be to have to squirt whipped cream and chocolate sauce into one's bra, even before having to do press ups afterwards. (God knows whose carpet that this transpires on it, as alongside some cherries with juice, it is left a mess afterwards).

After that, it is merely a narrative which is told blandly. I learnt to my surprise The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) is not the only film where a dead man's pizza is consumed, this time admittedly less fresh and covered in worms, but aside from this, I am amazed how colourless this film was. Castro, for all the times I have not necessarily liked his work, is nonetheless someone with personality, between his more misanthropic qualities to his elaborate special effects. Even the practical effects here are below his high standards which have surprised me at times, only found with part of a severed hand with a finger twitching. Instead there are a lot of comical rubber heads replacing the actors', which is shocking because working on Blood Feast 2 (2002) before and making a film like Near Death after, the one virtue he has had was the quality of his practical gore work.

The rest of the film when it becomes the typical slasher film, where these characters and a stray pizza man are trapped in the funhouse and picked off, is really not worth discussing. Generic characters in darkened corridors is what you get, with the adding fact that the film is only 69 minutes or so, the other seven afterwards end credits. Butchered manages to drag onwards even at such a slim length with a lack of energy. There is even an egregious sequence of exposition from the aforementioned pizza man, of a potentially interesting background of the killer being the first daughter who murdered her siblings, aside from the fact that, if they cannot even afford an elaborate gunshot sound beyond a pop let alone resources for a flashback, it is pointless dialogue to have included.

Made with Cinemassacre Productions ("Proudly corrupting the Youth of America"), any film regardless of minimum resources could have been made including ones that would be good or at least fin. Castro as a filmmaker, though I have felt he is more of a set piece creator, did however co-write The Jackhammer Massacre (2004), a scuzzy little number but managing to pull something interesting off. Here, as with many films, it is not a good sign if you are setting it in bland corridors in the dark unless that is deliberately taken to an extreme or given some flair. Sadly instead this is as bland as paste. I do not necessarily blame the script either as, with subjective taste, screenwriter Eric Spudic, who has also been an actor, had made a film like Aquanoids (2003) which, whilst trashy, was at least a film with a bit more happening within it as Jaws with giant fish men. Butchered just emphasises that, for the sake of a viewer, it is probably not a good idea to make a slasher set within one location unless you really can make it idiosyncratic, as even slasher fans would have trouble with this unless they had an undying love for the horror sub-genre in general.