This last Thursday, the Cinefamily ended their awesome slasher series with a SLASHERPALOOZA of three of the most gonzo slashers they could find. I attended, along with a huge posse of movie maniacs, who were all in the mood for an evening of blood and guts! The show began with a screening of ADAM GREEN’S incredibly entertaining homage to old school horror, HATCHET (2007). In attendance was the director himself, ADAM GREEN, who introduced the movie to the excited crowd.
But before the feature, we were treated to two of the video shorts that he makes in his spare time with other horror filmmaker friends. First was JACK CHOP, an infomercial spoof that he made with GRACE director, PAUL SOLET. It involves a high energy cable TV pitchman, who repeatedly injures himself violently with his product, the Jack Chop. It was pretty FAKIN’ hilarious!
The second short was THE TIFFANY PROBLEM and featured HATCHET star JOEL DAVID MOORE as a thirty year old husband obsessed with trick or treating on Halloween. It also featured JOEL (Bill’s brother) MURRAY from HATCHET. Very twisted, funny stuff.
It is clearly evident in these two shorts and his first feature, that ADAM GREEN has a great sense of humor and really knows how to craft a good gore-comedy.
Adam Green intros HATCHET.
I saw HATCHET back in ’07 at the first midnight screening at the Arclight Hollywood, which was also introduced by ADAM GREEN. It’s about a group of New Orleans tourists that go on a haunted swamp tour, where they are stalked by a local legend named Victor Crowley, played by KANE (JASON) HODDER. Victor Crowley is a deformed mutant of a man who likes to bury a hatchet in the skull of anyone trespassing in his swamp.
HATCHET is filled with copious amounts of nudity, blood and gore. The kills are totally over the top, with jets of blood pumping everywhere. Heads are twisted off, bodies torn in two with the guts hanging out, faces ripped apart with power tools and limbs hacked off with sharp implements!
Wow, that's really fucked up!
JOLEIGH FIOREAVANTI has her beautiful face mutilated with a belt sander.
Victor Crowley even killed the director, ADAM GREEN!
It also has a great sense of humor that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. The film is very much a love letter to the kind of slasher flicks I grew up with as a kid. I can see lots of FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE BURNING, MADMAN and JUST BEFORE DAWN influences in HATCHET. It’s major fun to watch this movie with an enthusiastic audience of horror fans.
After the film there was a Q and A with ADAM GREEN and two of the lovely ladies of HATCHET, TAMARA FELDMAN (Mary Beth) and JOLEIGH FIOREAVANTI (Jenna). It was moderated by MARCUS DUNSTAN, who is one half of the writing team responsible for FEAST I, II, and III and SAW IV, V, and VI. He also cowrote and directed the overlooked and really awesome, THE COLLECTOR from this year.
ADAM GREEN is interviewed by MARCUS (THE COLLECTOR) DUNSTAN.
Composer ANDY GARFIELD, JOLEIGH FIOREAVANTI, TAMARA FELDMAN and ADAM GREEN during the Q and A
My two new girlfriends, Tamara and Joleigh!
ADAM GREEN talked about how he made HATCHET by “borrowing” the equipment from his day job of shooting local infomercials and filming most of it at night. They didn’t have enough equipment to do any backlighting and that’s why the characters only run a few feet away from the monster and then stop to get their bearings. I actually thought that was a conscious choice, because it works at giving that old school low budget feel, as well as being very funny.
He also discussed how he is currently working on HATCHET 2 for next year! He said it’s being made for the fans who really loved the first one, like me. If all goes well, it’s going to pick up where the last one ended and he promises that it will be even gorier than previously before, as long as those MPAA pussies don’t fuck with it too much. I’m looking forward to seeing more killings from Victor Crowley in the future!
On most nights this would have been plenty for even the most jaded horror fans, but the evening was just getting started, for many had turned out to see one of the greatest killer baboon movies ever made, SHAKMA! Watch this trailer and maybe you’ll understand a little, why this film is so awesome…
SHAKMA (1990) tells the story of a group of med students that lock themselves inside their school one night, so they can play an elaborate D&D type game with their professor, the game master (pronounced gay master and played in an extremely affected manner by RODDY McDOWALL). Unfortunately Shakma, one of the highly aggressive baboons that are used for experiments, accidently gets shot up with a drug that makes him completely psychotic and he’s loose in the building! Just like a slasher, SHAKMA picks them off one by one.
SHAKMA!!!
The film stars two time recipient of the National Association of Theatre Owner’s Star of the Year Award, CHRISTOPHER (BLUE LAGOON, A NIGHT IN HEAVEN) ATKINS, AMANDA (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) WYSS, ARI (KATE AND ALI) MEYERS and … SHAKMA!!!
Shakma was actually played in real life by TYPHOON the baboon, who is the REAL STAR of this film. It is one of the most pissed off simians I’ve ever seen and there is a lot of footage of him running, jumping and smashing himself against doors, trying to get at his victims.
One of the tricks the animal wranglers used to make TYPHOON go nuts, was by taking a female baboon in heat and teasing the horny star with her, off camera. TYPHOON would go after the female like a crazed tornado and that’s what they filmed. If you look closely, you can see that Shakma’s sporting wood in a few shots.
I saw SHAKMA once before, over a year ago at The Cinefamily, and it was probably one of my favorite experiences of seeing a movie with an audience, ever. The crowd reaction made it a true cult experience and the film is just sooooo much fun to watch. You could make a drinking game out of how many times it sounds like they are referring to RODDY McDOWALL as the gay master, alone.
CHRISTOPHER ATKINS’ way over the top performance is a joy to behold. He really hams it up at the end, when he goes mano a baboono with SHAKMA in a fight to the death!
It would be very difficult to top these first two films, but somehow the Cinefamily did with this…
“This film will rip your dick off.” – Hadrian Belove, head programmer of The Cinefamily
NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1980) is a rarely seen film about a killer Bigfoot massacring campers in the woods. It was never given a theatrical release and only exists as a VHS from 1980.
It tells the tale of Professor Nugent and his students, who embark on a journey to locate Bigfoot, whom is believed to be responsible for countless deaths. They disturb a Black Magic ritual and eventually uncover the truth about Bigfoot, and his mutant offspring, but will they survive to tell anyone?
This movie was ape-shit crazy and contains some of the most fucked up kills I’ve ever seen! It is a true slasher movie with a Sasquatch killer, taking people out in outrageously violent manners. One guy even gets his dick ripped off by the nasty beast! Just check out what he does to these two poor girl scouts….
And yes, there is also a scene where a woman is attacked and raped by Bigfoot! Later, she gives birth to a mutant baby Bigfoot and the scene is an amazing combination of goofy and totally fucked up. My brain is still spinning from it.
We were all a little stunned and exhausted by what we had just witnessed, as we made our way out of the theatre at 2:30 A.M. SLASHERPALOOZA was amazing fun and a great way to end a fantastic series! SHAKMA!!!
Planet Of The Nerds 