A pair of rad buds are forced to fight a recently unleashed ancient evil in scenic Hawaii thanks to the powers contained within an occult book. Said book (naturally, The Necronomicon) has taken possession of an obsessed construction worker named John Jones and transformed him into a nearly unstoppable maniac. Anyways, the buds arrive at an old cabin to do some work and are greeted by a construction worker holding onto his nearly severed hand, screaming to high heaven. The mad man responsible follows closely behind and attacks. They manage to overpower Mr. Jones whilst barely containing their excited laughter. They stuff him in their truck bed and a silly “high speed” fight takes place. Some quick braking sends the madman flying and he runs off into the woods. He then stands on a rock, shouts some stuff in a distorted voice, huffs from a high quality respirator and vanishes… or he would have. He reappears and stands there as you hear the director shouting “KEEP MOVING! GET OUT OF THE PICTURE!” Eventually, he hears his friend over the waves and runs off. It is 100% amateur and 110% charming. That’s a fine summation for the whole fuckin’ experience. The respirator-wearing killer appears back at the job site and (following more cameos by the director’s voice) kills the other workers. He opens a copy of H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon and gets sucked into the book… bending him like a folding bed in the process… it’s wonderful. The two heroes arrive and get supernaturally locked in the cabin. Out pops John Jones from the book (doing his best floating Deadite impression) and after ripping off one of the guy’s hair, he suffers a brutal uppercut to the nuts… it’s all so wonderful. Severed limbs and plenty of fake blood follows. After severing John Jones into several pieces and throwing him in a bag, they try to flee but late arrivals allow the… oh my god… I can’t believe I’m writing this… possessed respirator to spread its evil to two more employees. Did I mention how wonderful all of this is? The evil spreads and our two dudes with attitude just want to get the hell out of town. Mr. Jones resurrects and promises he will have the blood of his enemies. If the SOV aesthetic is your jam, then you’ll be in fuckin’ backyard heaven as a small batch of like-minded goofs do their best Evil Dead impression. I love the audible direction, the lazy title track, the suitably awkward line delivery, the tape degradation, the dropped audio and the enthusiasm pulsating underneath every inch of this damn thing. It’s a mess, a beautiful mess that probably had no right seeing the light of day… but I’m sure glad it did.
Below are brief reviews of the short films included on the Visual Vengeance (go support them!)
Slaughter Day II
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Cousins brothers put their heads together back in high school and just really wanted to share their love for the Evil Dead films. Three kids wander over to an abandoned house, behave like idiots and bust open the wrong locked door. They unleash a killer in a military coat and… is it a dust mask… maybe part of a scuba diving kit? The large killer, who is definitely a child in some goosed-up clothes (“It's actually called a goose suit. It's an old circus term. ... He's goosed!”) beats the ever-lovin’ shit out of the trespassers. They fend him off but get locked in the place and attacked by that Sam Raimi frenetic POV shot. Kids were definitely injured in the process of making this homage. John Carpenter’s Halloween theme is used, a wooden chainsaw is passed off as the real deal and the splatter is the right level of charming. It runs 14 minutes and every second of it is a blessing to backyard horror fans.
Slaughter Day III
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Cousin’s brothers hone their craft with this third outing in their Evil Dead inspired and adolescence-fueled filmography. The dismembered corpse of the fright-masked madman they took out in the prior entry pieces himself together which is bad news for the two surviving dinks when they decide to return to the house. More abuse to children and teenagers follows. Copyrighted music and out of sync audio is close behind. The bros wake up after the madman poisons them with some hallucinogenic (it looks like he tosses birdseed at them) and have no idea what the hell is going on… they also look noticeably older. An awkward teenage girl appears and begins to seduce the older brother but before things go any further than a smooch, she transforms into our villain. “Special” effects are more “advanced” this time out and the Cousins’ strive for a little more complexity in their storytelling but they lose something along the way. It’s not bad by any means and I enjoyed the hell out of it, it just seems like a little spark was left behind in the purely adolescent prior entry.
Slaughter Day IV
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The final entry on the youthful Cousins brothers Slaughter Day series. Some schmuck breaks into the spot where the fiend met his end in the last entry and is almost immediately consumed. A stranded car brings another dude into the house and into the sights of our monster. It’s the older Cousins brother but I don’t think he’s playing the same character form the other ones because A: he doesn’t recognize the house and B: he is immediately murdered by the respirator-over-the-cheap-Halloween-mask combo we know and love. After his girlfriend follows and gets snatched, the two brothers pull up on the house. There they are. They’re ready for battle and rush in. They hang the antagonist from a nearby tree after dutifully wiping the floor with him but he gets free and goes on the offensive. Low-jack splatter, audible direction, uncontrollable giggles and synching issues make their return and then I think the everything closes before the story actually reaches its end… sure, why not? It’s still a blast and at ten minutes it hardly feels like it’s wasting your time.
198? USA
⭐️⭐️
Four minute Vietnam film from the Cousins brothers finds four children wandering through the forest, using sparklers to bring gunfire to life and slinging dialogue that may have been copied verbatim from some films they watched instead of doing homework. Chuck Martins, an Asian friend and the exact level of competence one would expect from children playing war is just as silly as you would expect. The thing comes to a close with a stunt that no mother would have allowed and the “actors” slipping into a giggle fit.
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