Rarely at the Blood Sprayer do I have the opportunity to review a movie with a Guinness World Record, but Joe Castro’s latest The Summer of Massacre holds just that distinction. He didn’t just go for any typical world record, but one us horror fanatics can get behind 100%, and that is “most onscreen kills!” Massacre is an anthology film with five different chapters covering eight different killers, so lets break them down one at a time.
Chapter One: Rampage The first story is about a man named Chris who heads out for a late night jog, only to be jumped by a gang of thugs who leave him for dead on the side of the road. He is found the next morning by a woman who tries to help Chris, but all he see’s is red and he snaps and kills the woman. From there Chris walks around town seeking revenge on anyone and everyone that he see’s until he finally finds the guilty party. No plot and a crazy number of kills make this particular story a plethora of violence, however there is no substance to this chapter at all.
Chapter Two: Lump Lori (Nick Principe in a slightly different role than playing Chromeskull in the Laid to Rest movies) is a terminally ill hermaphrodite who is nearing the end of her tragic life. Her beautiful and hateful sister wants to go out into the woods to party with some friends, but she is only allowed to go if she takes Lori and her mentally handicapped step brother. So little sis comes up with a plan to help Lori “end her suffering”. This is a much better chapter than Rampage due to the fact that we have real characters and story this time! Unfortunately the acting is below par and the story that we are given is ridiculous, but it is still a more enjoyable chapter.
Chapter Three: Son of the Boogieman The next tale starts out with a man out on a date with a woman, who shares her affection for the man and wanting to spend the rest of her life with him. Unfortunately, he is afraid to get too serious as he has spent his entire life on the run from his abusive father. He then shares that his mother was abducted and raped when she was 17, and she escaped after giving birth to him. Of course this would be the perfect time for mother to call and warn him that father’s in town. Once again at least an attempt to try and draw up a little plot and characterization, but running only about 11 or 12 minutes there isn’t quite enough time to work this story properly.
Chapter Four: Burn Next up is the lamest and morally corrupt church youth group I’ve ever seen having a bonfire. They start to share a local ghost story about two gay firemen who were burned to death by the rest of the fire squad. Since then the two have hunted down and killed everyone who wronged them, and were now hunting down their kin. Of course the group has to be related to the past members of the squad, and it is time for some burning revenge.
The cover artwork makes it sound like there are five chapters, but really in between the chapters you have police confessionals from three serial killers explaining why they do what they do. After chapter four we get a brief scene where the three men have broken out and want to go out with a bang.
What can I say after watching Massacre? I was excited to shut off my brain and enjoy the madness that was 155 on screen kills, but
forgive me for wanting a little substance with my mass killings. All of the characters and plot were so shallow and simple that even with all the bloodshed the film was extremely boring.
On the plus side the make up effects that Castro uses in the film were all done quite well (looks like he has a background in effects based on his imdb page). It is very sad to report that the make up and physical effects in the movie are at a minimum, and the entire movie is covered in ridiculous looking CGI that totally ruined the entire movie for me. I’m sure this probably had to be done because the time and cost to kill 155 people with fake blood and prosthetics would’ve been an impossible task. But I have to call it like I see it and the computer effects were atrocious and I couldn’t look past them.
The Summer of Massacre is coming January 31st to DVD and blu-ray from Breaking Glass Pictures.