nealcj1984

The Slasher Hunter began as series of 6 webisodes from director Steve Rudzinski that were released on YouTube in early 2011. The webisodes have also since been combined into a single short film, also available on DVD as well as included in Red Christmas.

The concept behind The Slasher Hunter is that there are a group of killers called Slashers with the people who hunt them appropriately called Slasher Hunters. Thrown into the mix are Survivors, which is a take on the "Final Girl" concept where there is always a person that survives a slasher's attack.

The short starts with 2 Slashers trying to kill a victim until a Slasher Hunter comes and saves the day. He doesn't care anything about the victim, only about taking down the Slashers and then leaving. This Slasher Hunter, portrayed by Chad Phillips, is the main protagonist of the short.

We are also introduced to a group of Slashers that are gathered playing a game. These are all variants of more popular slasher icons. For example, Charles is a play on Chucky, Pleatherface a play on Leatherface, Puzzle a play on Jigsaw, etc. The leader of the group is Steve Rudzinksi as Frank, a play on Freddy (instead of being burned, in this universe he was frozen and has icicle streams coming from his blue face). The Slashers decide to band together to take on a group of Survivors that are at a cabin in the woods.

The Slasher Hunter finds out about this meeting and the rest of the short involves The Slasher Hunter trying to protect the main Survivor, Lee, who is more unique than the usual Survivor.

The Slasher Hunter is an abrupt man, definitely someone who doesn't want to joke around and simply wants to get down to business. He is shown to have a short fuse during his confrontation with the Slasher Axe. We find out he's considered the best of the Slasher Hunters in the area but is still just a lowly grunt taking orders.

Lee is portrayed by Derek Rothermund and comes off as a highly unlikable character, with the others in his group trying to ignore him or push him off on others in the group. This plays off the usual archetype of the geek not being welcomed by the popular kids, which is exactly how it's played off here. It makes you wonder why they keep him around, yet that is eventually answered when we find out why Lee is so unique.

The Slashers themselves are shown to be more hilarious caricatures of their counterparts. There is a rivalry between the variants of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees because Michael was the "first" silent killer, yet Jason is the silent killer due to having a squeaky voice. It's little things like that which add a lot of good comedy into things. Frank, the Freddy counterpart, is constantly making jokes and tries to steal the show at times.

The one downside to this is that the video and audio quality is very rough. This was one of Rudzinski's earlier works and it's obvious he didn't have any high tech quality equipment available to work with, but I think he did the best with whatever he had. The editing works well for the most part, it gets sketchy in a few scenes (there is one scene where a character is talking, yet when we cut to a different angle the first character isn't visibly talking even though we hear her talking).

I think they did a great job with locations and the practical effects. There was one scene towards the end I was surprised they did an effect, would not have expected it from a short like this. The locations themselves were a perfect choice for what was filmed. I've seen many independent shorts like this where they just didn't have as many locations available as they could and it hindered how everything came together. Not here, the locations were perfect!

This is definitely a labor of love and you can tell that everyone had a fun time. Do not go in expecting a masterpiece but instead just a fun ride. It gets cheesy at times, but there isn't anything else like this.

Steve Rudzinski and Zoltan Zilai both write and star in this amazingly fun indie movie. Overall plot boils down to "group of people try to stop cultist from bringing forth an ancient one and ending the world" but Rudzinski and Zilai definitely made sure to add a unique twist to everything. I can honestly say, I don't know of any other movie with a time traveling pirate that fights against dimension hopping demons possessing hillbillies. One of those movies that you hear about and cannot imagine anything but a fun time.

We start with a flashback to 1714 where Zilai's Captain Zacharia stops the demon cultists only to be sucked into a portal and disappearing. Now in the present, the location is now the small town of Riverwood here the center of tourism is a museum to Captain Zacharia, better known as Captain Z thanks to the ditsy Heather (who cannot pronounce Zacharia and instead just says Z). Thanks to local hillbillies, an amulet is found in the river that brings forth the demon cultists and Captain Z! The demons want to finish a ritual to bring forth Leviathan, yet Captain Z steals the amulet and escapes, running into Rudzinski's Glen Stewart, a scholar that specializes in oddities including Captain Z. Madison Siple rounds out the trio as the previously mentioned Heather, a ditsy worker at the museum that can play an important part in bringing forth Leviathan thanks to her crimson hair. Aleen Isley is the primary antagonist as demon Vepar in hillbilly Bobbie's body.

As usual with Rudzinski films, the dialogue is full of puns and sarcasm. There is also plenty of self-aware jokes, some of which mock the movie itself (Heather commenting how a certain incident in the movie felt like a scene right out of a movie). Another prime example of self-aware comedy includes Vepar in Bobbie commenting on how its amazed that people speak Latin aloud without knowing what it means, coming right after Bobbie unknowing unleashing the demons in that cliché method. Another of my favorite quotes is Heather, casually speaking aloud in an aloof tone, "Heaven doesn't support racism and demonism, does it?" One thing I really liked is that each character has their own personality and get their own moments to shine with no one feeling like a cliché or straight stereotype. It's obvious a lot of characters began as a stereotype before being properly fleshed out into something better.

This movie was heavy with CGI effects, some of which worked but others at times just stuck out. Yet for an indie movie on a tight budget, I think they did a great job with the effects. The practical effects were also well done, especially with the make-up of the demon-possessed hillbillies. The horns were perfectly accomplished, not looking like prosthesis at all.

One of the main issues I had with the movie is that there were a few times the color of the scene would switch between takes, taking on either a bright green hue or a washed out white. There many scenes like that, I'm guessing they tried to use as least amount of those scenes as possible.

They did do a great job of the audio mixing, especially giving the demon-possessed hillbillies unique echo-y voices. Those were especially amusing thanks to Seth Gontkovic's Barbatos/Judd, with a thick hillbilly tone of voice mixing extremely well with the echo-y demon voice.

Overall this is a highly enjoyable and unique trip.

Red Christmas, written and directed by Steve Rudzinski, is a POV documentary for serial killer Tara. The movie starts in medias res with a home invasion going horrible wrong. The invader stumbles upon something that shocks him so much he doesn't expect Tara, who knocks him unconscious. Now the narrative starts at the beginning of the documentary, where Tara is describing why she is a serial killer and what lead her down that path. She states how she expects at some point to get caught and is using this documentary to describe everything. She is a hedonistic serial killer (which is described later in the film) that only targets men during December, killing two to three before Christmas Day. The rest of the movie details her picking a target and then her torturing him.

I went in with no knowledge of the movie outside of it being a "Christmas horror movie" by one of my favorite indie creators. To be honest, I did have medium expectations because "Christmas horror movies" can usually be cliché and follow a normal path. Yet there was nothing cliché about this! While Christmas was an important plot of the movie, the director stated that was almost a happy accident that he didn't plan in the beginning.

Yet Rudzinski definitely did a great job of finding ways to include Christmas iconography throughout the whole film. You could easily play Bingo with Christmas icons and win mid-way through the movie. Mistletoe, wreaths, and Nutcrackers are just a few with many more used. And it's not just that these items were shown in the background, they each played an important part somehow in the film! I cannot think of this movie working as well as it did if its core was any other holiday. The way the popular Christmas items were used ended up being incredibly unique and actually made me excited to see it shown.

Another thing that impressed me was the practical effects. There weren't any CGI effects at all, which was impressive considering some of the effects were done in the middle of a scene. For example, there is one scene that is a single take where after a certain event the victim needs to be bloodied. I would have expected them to cut the scene to apply the blood makeup but they actually figured out a way to apply it in less than a second off camera without a cut. I was highly impressed by that! There was one scene, which I don't want to spoil, that uses practical effects that could have been performed a cheating way but they went all out and it was amazing! I only really have 2 complaints about the movie. One issue I had is that the victim (played by Seth Gontkovic) didn't always seem to portray his character as scared or hurt as it could. Overall he did a great job as the victim, don't get me wrong! Yet there were times where he was very chill knowing he was able to be tortured and killed. Not as frantic as I'd have expected. The other complaint is that the blood was a bit too thin. It's a small complaint, I know, but watery blood just frustrates me. Cody Ruch, who did the special effects, did an amazing job of all the effects but for me the thin blood was distracting in one vital scene.

Obviously the good far outweighs the bad. Amie Wrenn, who portrayed Tara, was downright amazing. The way she described serial killing as bring joy to Christmas was chilling. She got to show a wide range of the emotional spectrum throughout the film and did a great job of it. There was one in particular long scene that was a single take of over 5 minutes with her in the bathroom that was downright phenomenal acting.

Rudzinski, as usual, uses his knack for down-to-earth dialogue loaded with puns and sarcasm to craft a Christmas masterpiece. I definitely plan on recommending this to my friends as it should be part of everyone's Christmas watching. I was impressed that he was even able to tie this movie into his shared universe of films!

The basic premise of this movie is that a young couple are on vacation in the woods when all the lights go out, so they spend the rest of the night in the dark discussing "the terrortory," the portion of woods they are in that is full of urban legends. This is the frame story for all the other stories told (titled Gotz) and it definitely does not end up where I thought it would, with the final minutes including one of the best sets of lines in the movie.

The stories being told are Siren (a hunter encounters a strange woman), The Prowler (a film set has someone come shake up down time between filming), Smiling Jack (a duo of hikers are chased by a slasher), The Drone Collector (a group of hikers are chased by drones), and The Midnight Clown (a group of filmmakers are terrorized by a clown).

My favorite two stories were Smiling Jack and The Midnight Clown. I felt those were the best two executed shorts that could work as feature length films. Smiling Jack is by far one of my favorite shorts from any anthology, I considered it that amazing! As with any indie movie, some segments did have a few faults. The Prowler had audio that didn't match the other segments and was too low. The Drone Collector also had a scene of really bad audio peaking. And for a microsecond in The Midnight Clown there was a crew member crouching in the background.

Yet that is it. Everything else was great! Even the practical effects, those were incredibly well done. Especially in Smiling Jack towards the end, that had a gory sequence that was well executed.

I highly recommend giving this a watch.

This isn't the first time Couto has made a found footage movie, with Alone in the Ghost House his first real foray into the genre. That movie proved he knew what to do and this movie is where he delved a bit more into things.

The unique thing about this movie is that there are 2 plots, alternating throughout the coarse of the movie. One set in the present and one in the past, but both are found footage. I have watched many found footage movies and this is the first one that splits between past and present footage, especially with different media styles. The present is of course on digital whereas the past segments are fashioned to appear recorded on VHS.

The first plot in the present involves Josh Miller as George working on his thesis involving fear with Michael William Ralston (Simon) as the main cameraman along with Joni Durian (Sarah, George's girlfriend), Allison Egan (Elizabeth, George's sister), and Alia Gabrielle Eckhardt (Lisa, their hippy friend). They plan to camp in the cursed woods of Amityville, trying to explore fear in various different ways. We are introduced to the second plot via a video tape, a supposedly "authentic" tape of what went down at a house in Amityville near where they will stay. While camping in the woods, we are introduced to Ira Gansler (Woodsman) who is looking each night for his missing daughter, warning the campers that the woods are dangerous.

The second plot features Julia Gomez (Lina) as a wife who is missing her husband, who has been deployed. She bought their first house which neither of them have seen yet and is recording her first weeks discovering the house. This plot alternates between first person perspective of Lina showing off the rooms and stationary scenes where Lina talks directly to the camera (or doing various things such as sitting at a table, doing yoga, getting ready to sleep). As her plot goes on more and more supernatural things are caught on tape.

The acting is great as usual. While majority of the cast have been in previous Couto films, Egan is a newcomer. Yet she's not a newcomer to the Ohio indie movie scene, staring in multiple Dustin Mill's movies as well as Eric Widing's Primordial (Widing produced and edited this movie). This was also Ralston's first time as a main cast member, previously just having bit parts. He did an excellent job for his first big acting role.

I only have 2 complaints, minor at that. First is that some of the past scenes have slight continuity error where the date does not show up. Another minor complaint is there were scenes where characters questioned something they saw yet they could have looked at what they just filmed to verify what they saw. Other than that, I truly enjoyed the movie!

It's difficult to give an accurate review without giving away the "big twist" which occurs a third of the way through the movie. You'll have to trust me when I say that it's well worth not having that spoiled as you will bust out laughing at the absurdity of everything going on! The film starts off as a cliché camp slasher flick, with archetypes sitting around a campfire talking about an urban legend. Yet these actually weren't all that cliché as you get to know them. You'd expect the overweight guy to get teased over his weight but it wasn't even mentioned once! The ditzy character is a guy. The brash and tough character is a girl. Nice tweaks to the archetype/stereotypes! The dialogue is pretty normal, which is a good thing. This is a conversation you could see yourself taking part of with other people. The actors have no trouble interacting and flowing well with each other. I fell in love with the movie within 10 minutes due to how cohesive everything was! The killer, as usual, wears a mask and boy is that mask frightening! They definitely went all out to make sure this mask was unique and it works incredibly well. The killer himself feels like a mix of Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees but has a dash of Freddy Krueger in there as well.

The only complaint I have is that a bit of the camera was sloppy in certain scenes, but that wasn't something that distracted from the film at all. For the most part the camera work was excellent, getting perfect shots and working well with back and forth during conversations. There was just one scene in particular, which itself was in a tight room, where it felt like camera didn't know where the actress was going and had to play catch-up. Literally the only complaint I have. Everything else was perfect to me and on par with other indie horror movies.

I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys unique horror satires/comedies. Not knowing the big plot reveal (which itself is 30 minutes in) will make the viewing so much more enjoyable!

I'm a huge fan of the writer/director Henrique Couto so I was naturally excited to hear about him making his first rom-com. He always has a way with including comedy, even in horror movies, so the romance side was new to him. I can safely say that Couto knocked it out of the park with this! As usual the writing was fantastic. Couto is great at making the dialogue sound natural, as if it what is being spoken is not scripted because it flows so easily. Obviously that works best when he has great talent! The acting was spot on, with even minor actors getting large laughs from the audience. Erin R. Ryan and Titus Wolverton had great chemistry and easily worked well with each other. They especially easily clicked with the supporting cast, such as when Titus' character Charlie hired Bradley Diehl's character (who delivered one of the best lines in the film via a misreading).

Normally I'm not a big fan of found footage movies as they can be very predictable. I was very pleased to find this movie NOT predictable! I enjoyed seeing various types of cameras used as well as seeing the footage itself vary between type of camera. Some found footage movies suffer from having different cameras yet they all look exactly the same.

Another enjoyable item was not seeing the cameraman, Ford, for a big chunk of time. We knew who he was, he interacted with the other characters, but was never seen until about 15 minutes into the film and it was mainly on accident. After that the viewer began to see him more often but it was nice to have that extra mystery.

The only problem I had with the film is that there were a few opportunities where a small change could have made the scene from a great scene to a fantastic scene. I don't want to go into details as to not spoil anything, but one involves the timing of a practical joke that could have been moved up to get the most jump from the viewer. As the joke was laid out in the film it worked great for the scene and got the desired effect! One thing that was impressive was how each of the character was fleshed out in ways that aren't shoved down the viewer's throat. Main example is we get a very small snippet of Ford on the phone that completely shifts how you can perceive his character, and the scene itself wasn't important to the plot and could even be viewed as an unimportant scene, yet it worked perfectly for what we knew about Ford.

The acting itself was great as usual with most of director Couto's films. Erin R Ryan did a great job in her role as an eccentric medium. Joni Durian was able to capture the essence of documentarians with a wide-eyed look that pushes extra emphasis to key words.