Movies, Films and Flix Dumb Data: A24 Movies and Altitude
Quick Notes
- Spoilers for Hereditary (2018)
- I’m fully aware that this data is dumb
- Green Room and The Blackcoat’s Daughter are my favorite A24 horror films.
The idea for this dumb data article came to me while watching The Shining (1980). As Jack and his family are driving through Colorado (average altitude of 6,800 feet) I started thinking about movies like Devil, The Devil’s Pass, Evil Dead Rise, and Blood Red Sky – movies that take place in skyscrapers, airplanes or a high-altitude location. Basically, movies that take place in an elevated location. The idea made me laugh because of the recent debate about “Elevated Horror,” a divisive term that describes horror movies that avoid jump-scares/gore/blood explosions and instead rely on allegories or emotionally complex stories that psychologically affect viewers. In other words, Jason X (which is beautiful) is not an Elevated Horror film – despite it taking place in space.
The one company that kept coming up while researching elevated horror was A24, the beautiful movie production company (I’m a proud AAA24 member) that has been distributing excellent films since 2013. Because of all the press coverage that made A24 the face of elevated horror, I decided to see which A24 horror film is the most elevated – by altitude. Yes, it’s a dumb idea, but it makes me laugh and I learned a lot about being above sea level. .
Here’s a list of the movies that will be competing, and maps showing where they take place.
- Enemy (2014)
- Under the Skin (2014)
- Tusk (2014)
- Life After Beth (2014)
- Into the Forest (2015)
- Dark Places (2015)
- Green Room (2016)
- The Monster (2016)
- The Witch (2016)
- Krisha (2016)
- The Lighthouse (2017)
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
- The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2017)
- It Comes at Night (2017)
- A Ghost Story (2017)
- Hereditary (2018)
- Slice (2018)
- In Fabric (2019)
- Midsommar (2019)
- Climax (2019)
- The Hole in the Ground (2019)
- Lamb (2021)
- Saint Maud (2021)
- False Positive (2021)
- X (2022)
- Pearl (2022)
- Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
- Men (2022)
- Talk to Me (2023)
*Beau is Afraid was filmed in Montreal, but it takes place in a fictional world so I didn’t include it on the map.
Quick Notes
- The Monster was filmed in Ottawa but it seems to take place in Any Town USA. I scoured the film for a location, but I couldn’t find where it takes place. The license plates are never seen and nobody is like “We’re stuck in Hudson, Florida!” Because of this, I placed it in Ottawa.
- It Comes at Night was filmed in upstate New York, and the location is left vague (the license plates are no help). Because of this I placed it in New York.
- Tusk was filmed in North Carolina, but it takes place in Manitoba. Thus, I counted the setting and not the filming location. Same for Midsommar.
- I left out High Life because it takes place in space. Too easy.
- When it comes to elevated horror, movies like Get Out, The Babadook, It Follows, and Black Swan were also mentioned numerous times. However, they take place in low-ish altitudes so I left them out to make sure this dumb data article didn’t spiral out of control.
- I pulled the maps from here, here, and here
The Winner!
- Hereditary (2018) – Takes place in Park City, Utah – Elevation 7,000 feet
- Midsommar (2019) – Takes place in Hälsingland, Sweden – Elevation 2,201 feet
What makes me really happy is that the most elevated films are Hereditary (#1) and Midsommar (#2). Ari Aster directed both of them and they are also the two highest grossing A24 horror films. It’s pretty great that the highest grossing A24 horror films are also the most elevated. Hereditary takes place in Park City, Utah, which has an elevation of 7,000 feet, Ari Aster’s film about a very patient cult who want to snag some hell money, also features a character being elevated into a treehouse and there’s a spooky scene that takes place in an attic. The film is also heavy thematically on grief, depression, and family trauma which fit in nicely with the elevated horror folks. It also features a head getting obliterated (Highest part of the body), which should sit nicely for the people who like horror films that feature head obliteration.
Fun Data
Elevation Facts
- 0-250 Feet – 81.1 Tomatometer average and a $7.4 million average at the worldwide box office
- 250 – 500 Feet – 71.8% Tomatometer average and a $5.3 million box office average
- 500+ Feet – 69.4% Tomatometer average and a $28.9 million average
- I love that the less elevated films have a higher critical average. The Lighthouse, X, Pearl, and Saint Maud helped this category a lot.
Honorable Mentions
- Lamb (2021) takes place in Akureyri Iceland (56m / 184 feet) and filmed in a valley about an hour away from the town center, Lamb gets extra points for having the main characters’ home be placed in a valley that is surrounded by mountains and occasionally we see the characters hiking in the hills and climbing up steep inclines. So, while it doesn’t have the highest altitude it does feature loads of high places. An added bonus is that the bedrooms are on the second floor.
- Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) features some solid mountain shots as the core duo drive to the mansion. However, the mansion where they shot is only somewhere around 330 height in elevation.
- Into the Forest (2015) takes place somewhere in the pacific northwest. It doesn’t give me a lot to work with, so I referenced the book in which the setting is in Northern California. The movie was filmed in Canada…
- A Ghost Story (2017) features some solid skyscraper work
- The Lighthouse (2017) features a 70-foot lighthouse that was built for the movie
- Life After Beth features some solid mountain hiking
- The Witch has Anya Taylor Joy floating in the air (and baby goo)
My 10 favorite A24 moments that feature characters in an elevated position
- Green Room – The Ain’t Rights performing “Nazi Punks” is an all-timer moment.
- The Witch – Thomasin floating in the air is a great visual
- Under the Skin – Scarjo watching the beach scene from a bluff is a solid moment
- Hereditary – I love a good treehouse bit
- The Blackcoat’s Daughter – There’s some legit second floor action
- Tusk –Watching Allison throw fish down to Walrus Wallace hits hard.
- Midsommar – Turning 72 isn’t always a great thing
- X – It’s cheating, but I love the overhead shot of the alligator.
- Climax – it’s only one step, but I dig the DJ shenanigans during the first dance
- Life After Beth – The final hiking scene
If you’re bored and want to listen to some podcast episodes about the movies mentioned in this data article check out the Movies, Films and Flix podcast (it’s everywhere). I’ve talked about Green Room, Tusk, and The Blackcoat’s Daughter,
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 515: Midsommar, Ari Aster and A24 Horror
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Mark and Lisa L. (@FoolishMinion20 on X) discuss the 2019 folk horror film Midsommar. Directed by Ari Aster, and starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper and some devious Swedes, the movie focuses on what happens when a group of Americans get caught up in some pagan cult shenanigans. In this episode, they also talk about A24 horror films, the excellence of Florence Pugh, and bear suits. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast -Episode 514: The Pacifier, Vin Diesel and Action Hero Babysitters
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Mark and Erik discuss the 2005 action comedy The Pacifier. Directed by Adam Shankman, and starring Vin Diesel, Brittany Snow, Max Thieriot, and several pairs of cargo pants, the movie focuses on what happens when Vin Diesel is forced to babysit a group of kids and their pet duck. In this episode, they also discuss jet ski action scenes, action hero babysitters, and incredibly expensive basement vaults. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Blood Clots (2018), a horror anthology of horror-comedy vignettes.
MY CALL: I’d definitely call this an above average horror anthology. Not too cheap, not too dumb, not too “bad.” It also lacked higher production levels of writing, execution, and gore. But I think it made up for it with cheekiness.
MORE HORROR ANTHOLOGIES: Dead of Night (1945), Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Screams of a Winter Night (1979), Creepshow (1982), Screamtime (1983), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Deadtime Stories (1986), Creepshow 2 (1987), From a Whisper to a Scream (1987; aka The Offspring), After Midnight (1989), Tales from the Crypt Season 1 (1989), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Grimm Prairie Tales (1990), The Willies (1990), Two Evil Eyes (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Campfire Tales (1997), Dark Tales of Japan (2004), 3 Extremes (2004), Creepshow 3 (2006), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), All Hallows’ Eve (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013), The ABCs of Death 2 (2014), V/H/S Viral (2014), Southbound (2015), Tales of Halloween (2015), A Christmas Horror Story (2015), The ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016), Holidays (2016), Terrified (2017; aka Aterrados, a pseudo-anthology), Oats Studios, Vol. 1 (2017), Ghost Stories (2017), XX (2017), All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), The Field Guide to Evil (2018), Nightmare Cinema (2018), Shudder’s series Creepshow (2019-2021), Scare Package (2019), The Mortuary Collection (2019), Xenophobia (2019), V/H/S/94 (2021), Netflix’s series Cabinet of Curiosities (2022) and V/H/S/99 (2022).
Featuring a rather eclectic mix of killer invertebrates, unlikely cannibals, just plain mean torture, zombies, werewolves, tentacle monsters and monstrous blind dates, Blood Clots offers an array of seven horror vignettes. While clearly not as wildly diverse as The ABCs of Death (2013) with 26 such extra brief vignettes, seven is still on the higher side such that we are more seeing “scenes” of horror than we are the 20-30 minute, more fleshed-out short horror stories of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), V/H/S (2012) or Creepshow (1982). So let’s dive into these horror shorts…
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Clot I, Hell of a Day (Director Evan Hughes)
Out in rural Australia, an injured woman at a seemingly abandoned pit stop hears a scream, finds a mangled bloody dead body with its guts strewn about, and finds herself trapped in a bad place.
This zombie apocalypse vignette features excellent gore, some creative uses of that gore, and provides a thoughtful glimpse into the tedium that would likely befall a survivor. There’s a wonderfully random injury that was executed with great creativity despite its simple elegance. I liked this a lot! Simple. A few days in the life of a survivor.
Clot II, Never Tear Us Apart (Director Sid Zanforlin)
When two guys stumble across a cannibal couple in the woods, they give chase. But it turns out an unlikely family reunion is in store.
I squee’d at the best axe to the head since Wrong Turn (2003)! Wow. Great gory death! This also features a great moment of brutal torture imagery. The dialogue is cheesy bad. But I didn’t mind at all.
Clot III, Blue Moon (Director Martyn Pick)
Things go horribly wrong (for the perverts) during the filming of an episode of European Doggers. And today I learned that dogging means having sex in public.
This is a bit perverse. I mean, there’s a ‘dick slammed in a door’ gag. Thankfully, in the spirit of good taste, the doggers get dogged by werewolves. There’s a lot of blood but nothing happens on screen. This one is more shaky cam frantic with a bit of humor.
Clot IV, Time to Eat (Director Luke Guidici)
A young boy kills some kind of tentacle monster in the basement and brings it to his mother. Apparently, he was more the monster. Just a few minutes long. A nice Sunday comic strip-lengthed idea.
Clot V, Still (Director Carl Timms)
A British statue-impersonating street performer relies on his motionless trade to survive a zombie apocalypse. Narrated by the still performer, this is charming and cheeky. It captures some excellent zombie-centric humor as he watches blood spurt from the neckbites of nearby victims. Cute idea. Feels like a scene from a zombedy.
Clot VI, Hellyfish (Directors Robert McLean and Patrick Longstreth)
CGI animated divers in search of a lost bomb in the sea are attacked by jellyfish. This is perhaps the hokiest segment. This feels like Psycho Beach Party (2000) meets Crabs (2021) but with CGI jellyfish and Jersey Shore douchebags. The jellyfish look kinda dumb… but kinda cute. Weak CGI gore, but a fun concept.
Clot VII, The Call of Charlie (Director Nick Spooner)
An impromptu dinner party includes a comically Lovecraftian dinner guest getting set up on a date. This is just charming! Everyone is normal except for the tentacle-face monster. They quibble about who makes the best sangria, the monster uses mouth wash and is dressed well for his date, one husband just doesn’t want to be there… This ventures into amusing social faux pas; typical dinner party stuff with a weird spin.
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Clocking in at a breezy 72 minutes, these seven segments are short snippets. Generally speaking, this was pretty good. The average segment had good production quality, decent gore and acting, and interesting ideas. Overall not much was wowing, but all of it was pretty good. I was very pleased with this. Especially The Call of Charlie! That short had awesome creature effects and a neat angle.
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MY CALL: I mean, it’s okay. If you’re like me and you wanna’ see basically every 80s horror movie, this one is not likely to be regretted nor lauded. There’s just enough action, just enough gore, just enough silly gags to keep my attention span afloat. MORE MOVIES LIKE Primal Rage: Primates were pretty popular around this time—check out Monkey Shines (1988) and Shakma (1990).
While striving to develop the greatest breakthrough in modern medicine, a scientist at a Florida university accidently creates a rage virus while experimenting on baboon brains… while the baboons are alive. Sounds like a future founder of the Umbrella Corporation or perhaps a past researcher on the team behind The Crazies (1973, 2010).
Never heard of this film. And when I’ve never heard of an 80s movie, I usually assume (and more often than not, correctly so) that it’s pure drivel—even if often deliciously bad. But as far as filmmaking and production value goes, this movie opens with a promising campus-life montage and surprisingly capable acting.
College journalist Sam (Patrick Lowe) plans to break into an on-campus animal-testing lab to get a story. Sam’s friend breaks in (on Sam’s behalf), is bitten by a test subject baboon, and gets sick. The virus spreads by bite… and even by first date hickey. Victims become wildly violent and ill-tempered. Their skin looks sickly with lesions and boils, they drool, they become stronger from the adrenaline rush, they become furiously homicidal—everything you’d expect from a rage virus movie. They even get somewhat zombie-ish. Before 28 Days Later (2002), Resident Evil (2002) and The Sadness (2021), there was Primal Rage with its much lower budget 80s rage virus.
Trying to solve this problem, Sam teams up with his love interest Lauren (Cheryl Arutt) and her roommate Debbie (Sarah Buxton; Nightmare Beach).
The special effects of this movie are nothing special. Not terrible by any means, but clearly budget limited and not trying to make waves with wild death scenes. Sure, there’s blood and drooling and strangling. Still nothing particularly titillating transpires on screen. A zombie grabs a victim by the hair and rip-scalps him, another rips the skin off someone’s hand, and another rips out someone’s throat. But you see so little and so briefly, these scenes lack any impact. Still, the movie is trying and you feel that. It’s not so bad really. The groaty monstrous face makeup is consistently gross, there’s plenty of blood along with some silly gags, a hilarious falling death and a silly crushing death, and there was a nice decapitation. When a baboon is hit by a car, the visual effects are ridiculous. Best part of the movie for me.
Not so rare for 80s movies, but a small warning. The movie includes some very toxic masculinity, violence against women, sexual assault, attempted rape, and other unsavory social content. None of it comes to strong fruition or becomes graphic on screen. But it’s there.
In the end, Sam and Lauren kill all those infected and go about their business like pretty much nothing happened. See what happens when you perform inhumane science experiments on animals? I’m looking at you, scientists!
This is a light, easy going but still mildly gross and bloody horror entry. Recommended for major fans of 80s horror. This is no hidden gem or must-see. But it’s a breezy watch even if absent of gee-wow horror effects or inspired death scenes.
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Mark and Jonny Numb (@JonnyNumb on Twitter) talk about their favorite cinematic chainsaw fights in movies like White Fire, Mandy, 31, Maximum Risk, Motel Hell and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 512 – The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage and Shoe Swapping
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Mark and Niall (@elniallo on Twitter) discuss the 2022 action comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Directed by Tom Gormican, and starring Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, and a lot of movie memorabilia, the movie focuses on what happens when Nicolas Cage becomes a CIA operative. In this episode, they also talk about shoe swaps, calamari, and the greatness of Mandy (2018). Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Malum (2023), this incredibly well-produced macabre madness is an ambitiously inspired goregasm.
MY CALL: Intense, mean, dire and very, very, very graphically macabre at every chunky gory opportunity. I loved this film. MORE MOVIES LIKE Malum: Last Shift (2014).
Very much like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 (1987), Malum is writer/director Anthony DiBlasi’s (Dread, Last Shift, The Profane Exhibit, Cassadaga) reimagined Last Shift (2014) with the same plot but a different cast. But, full disclosure, I have not seen Last Shift (2014) since I initially reviewed it almost ten years ago. So I cannot offer a good side-by-side comparison of the two films.
From its very first scene, this movie makes it abundantly clear that devil worshippers and Satanic ritual will be thematically important. Our cold open presents a cop brutally murdering his fellow cadets and then committing suicide to join his ‘master.’ The exploding face gore from the gunshot is spectacular. A year later, his daughter Jessica (Jessica Sula; Split) is a rookie police officer preparing for her first shift. Upon her request, this first shift is standing watch by herself overnight in the near-abandoned police station where her father’s massacre transpired. Young, attractive and perhaps too meek for conflict, she strikes me as no more than tenderized final girl victim bait for whatever evils herein lurk. She is left with one instruction: “stay out of holding (cells).”
Without easing us into a false sense of security, our cadet encounters all manner of flickering lights, strange noises, momentary sightings of another uniformed cadet in the shadows, objects moving on their own, a disturbed hobo (Kevin Wayne), a manic hooker who hears voices, slamming doors and mysterious threatening phone calls. Among the disordered melee of distractions, no single event seems nearly as dire as expected… at first. But they build in magnitude and seem to create a vile synergy projecting an ever more infernal atmosphere. Yeah, it gets creepier. But even more so it gets… more Hellish. Like Jessica’s own personal Hell curated perfectly for her suffering.
With all the supernatural and weird distracting goings-on on Jessica doesn’t seem to acknowledge how weird this all is until she’s in too deep. It’s like she never gets a break long enough to realize how eff’d up this all is. Every encounter Jessica has is suspiciously weird, and things get yet weirder when she finds a flash drive with Satanic videos.
Great gore in this movie! Really fleshy and nasty. A brutally gory face-smashing scene, another shot-gunned goretastic face, even more super gory chunky faces, and multiple events of sloppy stabby murder round out a lot of good gore. The gory stylings really play well into the demonic themes well. It’s really gnarly and deliciously gross! A hanging scene was truly amazing. Hanged by some supernatural means, the victim’s fingers are scythed from her hand, her eyes grotesquely bulge, and her body drops from her squeezed and sundered neck in a pinata-like dowsing of blood. Wow.
Just like Last Shift (2014), the cultists at the end were next level off-putting and unlike anything I’ve seen in movies before. As if imagined through a Lovecraftian lens, they are inhuman and slimy, their hoods are saturated in their evil ectoplasm, and their eyes and skin are not of this world.
With all the jumpy shenanigans, goopy splattered bloody murder, and wildly unrelated goings-on, this movie feels like an incredibly well-made B-movie. It’s entertaining, but not necessarily interesting (since there’s no mystery to it, only lunacy).
I’ve gotta’ say, this is pretty cool. I definitely favor this to the original. Admittedly, the original just seemed to rub me the wrong way. And even though this is quite similar to the original, I feel the staging and execution of the storytelling along with the very ambitiously magnified and inspired gore effects both really elevate this well above its source material.
Likely somewhat Hellraiser-inspired in the best ways possible, the sum of macabre visuals of this film are amazing. Let’s please give Anthony DiBlasi all the money so he can continue to make graphic, inspired horror for the depraved masses.
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John’s Horror Corner: Baby Blood (1990; aka, The Evil Within), a Eurosleaze, splatterfest of a French horror.
MY CALL: Well, it’s gross, exploitative and very gory… and it’s about a monstrous blood-drinking fetus. Sooooo… you know if this movie is for you. MORE MOVIES LIKE Baby Blood: For more baby horror, try Seeding of a Ghost (1983), The Suckling (1990), The Unborn (1991), The Unborn II (1994), Grace (2009), The Night Feeder (1988), It’s Alive (1974), It’s Alive II: It Lives Again (1978), It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987), the remake of It’s Alive (2009); and for pregnancy horror go for Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Demon Seed (1977), Inside (2016), Inside (2007), Still/Born (2017) and Good Manners (2017; As Boas Maneiras).
Looking for something different? How about a sleazy, splatterfest of a French horror movie about a monstrous impregnation? Now you’d think this would surely be the lowest caliber of schlock filmmaking. Yet the opening scenes offer a narration by the monster of the movie storytelling of the origins of life on Earth including its own Primordial creation. Say what you want about all the blood and boobs in this movie, but it’s really going for it.
The acting, direction, photography and writing are all at least average when weighed against other horror releases for its time. That’s not to say this is “well-written.” But simply that this is echelons above the adult movie-like drivel that comprised so many releases of the era (e.g., Night Angel, The Haunting of Morella).
A French circus performer in an abusive relationship with her carney boyfriend (ChristianSinniger), Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou; Lady Blood, Empire of the Wolves) leads an empty life. After a jaguar explodes into a gory mess, a serpentine monster from within its body finds Yanka asleep and crawls into her… ummm… uterus (via the most readily available throughfare). Like a sexualized spin on The Hidden (1987), Yanka goes on the run to feed the newfound cravings of her ‘baby.’ Her impregnated parasite talks to her with a little feisty demon voice, beckoning her to kill for it so it can grow and be born. In this way, it’s also reminiscent of Brain Damage (1988).
As if playing on Mathilda May’s fanfare from Lifeforce (1985), Yanka is naked quite a bit. Like, very naked. We even see her soaked in blood while in a nude stabbing frenzy. Like I said before, this is a Eurosleaze splatterfest and, at times, it seems to have a sense of humor to its spastic stabby murders.
Yanka grifts from town to town, preying on the sleaziest of men. It’s nice to see that she’s only killing the worst of them, drinking their blood to nourish her parasite. At one point she ends up on a bus of very rape-y hooligans. Don’t worry, they get theirs.
The gore in the film is quite satisfying. The dream sequence birth scene is pretty wild and groaty, with bloody gore-slathered arms emerging from Yanka’s abdomen. At one point, a man is gas-inflated to a bursting death. After Yanka gives birth, the baby eats out a man’s chest cavity and sheds its infant skin like a molting lizard, now leaving a goopy trail of thick mucus wherever it goes. Now in the form of a tentacle monster, the newborn tears the hooligan bus driver’s face apart.
The movie ends, but there is really no ending at all. A bus crashes and the newborn has made its way into the ocean as it intended for its next evolutionary step. I guess this spells doom for mankind. But alas, there was never a sequel to answer this consequence.
There’s nothing sensational or original about this very sleazy, very bloody flick. However, the execution of the premise, the dynamic between Yanka and her fetal parasite, and the manic intensity of the spastic splatter murders make for an interesting horror endeavor. Strongly recommended for fans of schlock and exploitation horror.
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John’s Horror Corner: Blades (1989), an obscure, indie, very hokey, killer lawnmower movie.
MY CALL: Just bad enough in a good way that an adventurous B-movie connoisseur would doubtfully regret it. MORE MOVIES LIKE Blades: Slaxx (2020) and Rubber (2010) spring to mind.
IMDB summary—“Somewhere in New Jersey, a killer lawnmower stalks a small town’s golf course.” And with that description, how could you possibly not feel the need to watch this?!
For a little indie 80s horror movie I’ve never heard of, this is much better made than I would have expected. I expected intolerably bad editing, acting, writing, ultra-cheap sets and clunky sound and scoring—more like Nightmare Weekend (1986). But this is not the case. I’m not calling this some overlooked hidden gem or anything. I’m just saying it’s not complete and utter crap right outta’ the gates at all.
Our first (off-screen) lawnmower death scene results in a pile of a young couple’s body parts in a sand trap. While clearly low budget, even this seemed to exceed my expectations. Baffled by the massacre, the new golf pro and club owner decide to keep things quiet since there’s a major televised golf tournament coming up. So basically, they’re pulling a “mayor from Jaws (1975)” and putting everyone at risk.
The tone of the movie is very light. This is practically a horror comedy, even if light on the comedy. The death scenes are all somewhat silly in execution. They are all off-screen, and after-the-fact remains of the victims are nothing special—some bloody, torn clothes and some occasional severed limbs. Two attacks feature some on-screen (implied) leg shredding and squirming bloody stumps, but that’s about it. Not that it isn’t worth a good grin or two. There just isn’t enough. Still, this remains better than I expected. Despite being very capably produced, the budget limitations reduce the pacing to boredom more frequently than most viewers would prefer.
It’s kind of funny how they “hunt” the lawnmower in the end. But nothing notably eventful comes of it. The lawnmower even has its own local folklore—deliciously laughable. And again, this is where I defend this movie’s merits, however few they may be and even when lacking in the classically integral scares and gore departments.
The final fight with this lawnmower is senselessly stupid. Our protagonists shoot at it and throw grenades from a van while the mower rams the vehicle, then runs away and charges back at them like a remote-control car requiring a wide birth. Ultimately, this killer gardening tool is defeated by golf. Yes—golf. So dumb, yet so perfect.
Definitely got a few laughs out of this movie. Again, there’s just enough “good” in this bad movie to recommend it (to fans of bad movies). I’m not ranking it high in this respect. I’m just saying that adventurous B-movie connoisseurs would doubtfully regret it.
Movies, Films & Flix 