Old School Week: Bloody Murder

Old School Week begins and nothing says old school quite like a mindless slasher movie.  Let’s just skim through IMDB and see what we can find, shall we?     Ah here looks like a family delight so pop that jiffy pop, sink down in your cushy couch and prepare for a scare.   This is Bloody Murder.

Comin' for ya, Pooh Bear!

Spoilers come in lots of different forums.  It’s all miserable.

Ah we open our amazing opus with a gaggle of teenagers in a SUV traveling to their summer job as camp counselors at Camp Placid Pines to prep it for the onslaught of bouncy, sugar ridden youngsters who they will be responsible for.   As they ride down they begin their scintillating dialogue that was stolen from every later Friday the 13^th.

Trim you good, hedge!

Seriously they have a ghost story of a kid Trevor Moorhouse whose father was the head counselor and little Trevor constantly tattled on every kid working there if they were slacking, fooling around or partaking in a spiff or a cocktail.   It was said he drowned in the lake years ago but no body was found.   Later on there were tales of kids going there and never coming back.   DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND VAGUELY FAMILIAR????!!!!   

Car trouble??

Following true to form of this tired formula, the kids split off to do their chores and slowly but surely the cast is being methodically killed off by a guy in a jumpsuit with a hockey mask?  However, the fellow in question is very thin; the outfit looks baggy on him and frankly wouldn’t scare a child because he looks like he is cosplaying in the woods.    The local law enforcement is of course inept at doing paperwork let alone dealing with a serial slasher of such awesome cunning and they play a round of red herring with one of the cast.     The premise is simple, the dialogue feels like it was yanked from every low budgeted slasher from the 80’s having Friday the 13^th envy, the acting is more wooden than the plank they should all be walking off and apparently kills rely on tight out of frame focus and about 3 simplistic gore gags.  

The fake blood could have used some black dye in it and they are attempting to make this part ghost story and part suspense even though they did enough exposition to fill a novella.  It was shot on 35mm spherical and shot in stereo and I am guessing that is all the community college was going to let these yahoos use.    Sorry to say it slasher fans but there is next to no violence as it is implied (couldn’t afford effects), very little harsh or suggestive language and absolutely no nudity.  Feels like the kiddie ride at the slasher theme park.

Operator! Quick I need...(LINE!)

The editing was fair and some of the jump cuts as well as scares could have really brought some genuine scares if shot better at night and oh what else…hmm…oh yeah not ask your friends to star in it and bargain for some actual actors.   The scene chewing of too much dialogue and the fact that almost every counselor has someone close dead in their life was absurd and unnecessary.    The potential for a decent film was there and the concept is a solid enough formula but writer John R Stevenson (Bloody Murder and Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp) just overcompensated due to lack of experience.