THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE

THE SUMMER OF MASSACRE (2011)
US
Directed by Joe Castro

REVIEW:
     Yep, it's another anthology movie I'm reviewing. This one kinda came up out of nowhere on me so I just had to see what was going on with it. Now anthology movies are nothing new, I reviewed a couple just recently in fact. Yet what got me with this one is it supposedly has the highest body count for a for a slasher film yet. And with a end tag line claiming the movie will have the viewer looking for a barf bag by the finish of it caught my attention the most. With it saying that it has a lot to live up to.

RAMPAGE:

CAST:
Tim A. Colley - Chris

      So let me get this one straight in my head. Guy gets mugged by three underachieving yet well dressed dudes in park. Said guy gets half of his face cut from side of his mouth to his ear and his eye gouged out then passes out afterwards. After he comes to he goes on a killing rampage with massive head trauma and losing blood as he goes along. Okay. Why is there no one screaming at the site of him and running the hell away or at least calling the cops after seeing him walk what I can only guess is half the damn city he lives in (he likes to walk I guess). And where is the rest of the story? And why does he go around killing random people, though I will admit in very interesting ways. Yet this segment is the second worst in whole movie but alas that isn't saying very much.

LUMP:

CAST:
 Nick Principe - Laurie
Lisa M. Garcia - Kimberly Ann

     You ready for this one. Laurie, a mentally challenged "female" (wait until the twist at the end for this one) suffers from spinal bifida and one serious head cyst among other problems (including really hairy dude legs) is sent over the edge of a cliff by her sister to help speed up her dying process. Problem is Laurie is no longer as mentally challenged now thanks to that and decides to go and kill everyone "she" sees for past slights. And this one has some of the worst acting in it and the most awkward love scene in a movie I've seen. This one is just terrible all the way around.

SON OF THE BOOGYMAN:

CAST:
Deanna Meske - Young Mother
Scott Barrows - Mr. Boogens

     Wait a minute, how did this one get in here? There's a actually story here! A young girl is raped by the local boogyman legend and has a kid by the incident. 30 years later daddy wants to terrorize his son. The reason why I say this one has a story is because it sets up the present by having a back story of what happened in the past. You also have a monster in the form of Mr. Boogens and his dedication to finding and then terrorizing his son throughout the segment. Yet what this does correctly is ruined as well due to the same reason why the others fail which I'll go into after after a little bit. And I'm still wondering how Boogens is still walking around after taken at least 6 bullets to the face at point blank range.

BURN:

CAST:
Cleve Hall - Father Daniel
J.T. Seaton - Devon Hopper

     Two gay firefighters are burned together by their co-workers. Simple set-up as possible for a story. And it starts out with a campfire tale about them at a church retreat in the same area where disappearances have been happening for over 30 years all related to the families who helped burn the two gay lovers. I can except that somehow the two lovers survived being burned and living with ease. What I can not accept is that there is a church retreat and a church in the same area where there have been so many people have gone missing and killed and have the church still open and retreats happening knowing that the offspring of said families of those killed will be there. Great setup for a story but lousy follow through.

THE WAREHOUSE:

CAST:
Dan Lovell - Dax

     And now we come to the wrap-around story. If you actually can call it that. It's actually just a four scenes before each segment and a end scene where you see the three convicts in a warehouse filled with dead bodies they've killed. I will give Dan Lovell, who plays the convict Dax, a little bit of respect due to he was the best actor in the whole movie (but that really wasn't hard to do) and that he didn't overact at all is even more amazing. And like all the other segments in the movie this one suffers the same fate as the rest. One other thing I wondering about in this one. How the hell did they get a nuclear weapon and no one knew about it?

     That rest (as I mentioned in almost every segment) is some of the worst special effects I have ever laid eyes on in a movie. Actually make that they were the worst special effects I've seen in a movie. This movie makes the Japanese gore films look like a breath of fresh air. Ninety percent of this movie has cheap and terrible CGI. All the deaths use it instead of in camera effects which cheapen the production even more. The look of the CGI isn't even good as it looks like it comes from the early 80's. Also considering that most of the backgrounds in the movie use this CGI, if you want to call it that, make the production of the movie look like crap. The sound and sound design aren't much better than the special effects and the music for the movie is just annoying. But the worst part The Summer Of Massacre is its just boring as I kept looking at how much time I had left before this eyesore was over. Movies like this are the reason why horror movies in general get no respect, and I'm afraid there's going to be more movies coming out like this. One other note, this film boast that it has over 150 deaths in it, yet in reality it's more like forty. The rest are dead bodies shown in the background of horrible looking CG done by the same bad CG. Or if you want to really get technical the death count is more like three million thanks to a bomb. So even the filmmakers got the dam body count wrong. Do yourself a favor all those that read this, stay far away from this abomination. You have been warned.


BEST DEATH:
     Considering that most of the deaths are just horrible looking, this looks like it was done by WETA or ILM in retrospect.

BEST LINE:
     My kitty kitty.

FUN FACTS:
     Joe Castro has worked on the special effects for over twenty movies, including his own films.

     Joe Castro has directed one sequel movie, and that was for his film Terror Toons, Terror Toons 2: The Sick And Silly Show.

     Brinke Stevens has had a very long career in film dating all the back to the 1972 movie Necromancy, and has been in over 130 films.