Directed by: Vito Trabucco
Run Time: 90 Minutes
This movie was being advertised on Twitter and like forty percent of the weirdness on that service it of course was brought to my attention. So I checked out the trailer, carried out the hunt for a retailer that had it and shipped to Canada, and once I owned it I promptly forgot about it. Which really was a disservice to this film as it is a fun, crude, and completely insane.
The story starts in 1977 at Happy Day Bible Camp. A vague denominational Christian bible camp in the middle of nowhere USA. The campers and staff are engaged in the sort of things you would expect people in a Christian bible camp to be doing. Mostly sex, drugs, and referencing events that happened in 1977. Like the death of Elvis Presley or commenting about how horrible a certain space opera movie that opened earlier that year. This film is a slasher film, so the nostalgia for the seventies gives way to random bloody murder of everybody except for two people. The added bonus is the killer is dressed up as a nun with a devil mask.
The plot then skips ahead seven years to 1984. Another vague Christian denomination group is test camping at Happy Day Bible Camp to see if it's worth buying. Leading this collection of misfits and dead people walking is one Father Reggie (Reggie Bannister). Sadly this is the point where the script starts to drag because of the who's the killer shell game, crude jokes, and setting up the victims for their slaughter. The jokes are funny and the set up for the third act blood bath is needed but the whole pace of the film just stops.
Eventually the movie crawls to the third act. The murderous nun in the devils mask makes her reappearance and the campers and staff start dropping in amusing fashion. The movie also shifts in tone from tongue in cheek tone to full on camp mockery of the slasher genre. To highlight this, the first person killed is decapitated with great practical effects whereas later the nun kills a girl with a crucifix and penetrating a notorious body cavity. Ron Jeremy makes an amusing and blasphemous cameo.
Overall this is a fun and weird movie. It's a love letter to slasher movies from the seventies and eighties but it is not afraid to make fun of those movies as well. The movie falls down when it come to it's characters and it's pace. The characters are stereotypical cardboard cutouts for comedic purposes most of the time. Like the ditzy girl with nudity in her contract, the dumb fat guy, a few variations on the jock stereotype. Not all the characters are like this but there are enough of them that it does distract from the movie. The pacing issues seem to stem from padding so the movie can get a ninety minute run time.
This is a sold rental and or streaming film for fans of raunchy humor. Also a great film to show at your party for coming out as an atheist.
MVT: Ron Jeremy's cameo. I know it's dickish to not talk about why but it is a spoiler. The spoiler free version is the man can act and is funny, especially in this role.
Make or Break: It's a minor and petty break. But I really would have like Father Reggie to have pulled out a four barreled shot gun.
Score: 5.15 out of 10
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