Really Awful Movies

It was 24 years ago today/ Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play…whoops….wrong record. This is horror-serial-killer back story time, not classic albums that changed the face of popular music.

Right-o.

It was 24 years ago, not today but rather Easter Sunday, when unassuming family man Douglas Fisher went a little off-script and created a paper maché Easter bunny mask of his own design, complete with light up eyes. He then went on a bloody killing spree which culminated in the execution of his own wife and daughter.

The Fisher Bunny Massacre, as depicted in the opening, pre-credit scenes in debut writer/director Jeremy Todd Moorehead’s Easter Sunday, is rendered in washed-out colors and shown replete with pseudo-well-rented VHS artifacting, making the film look like something you’d unearth at a flea market or thrift shop on sale for about a buck-ninety-nine. The retro look and feel works well for this indie production, as Easter Sunday is all about the retro — a loving homage/throwback to our beloved slashers of the 80s, albeit with some modern touches like that need to go all meta on the audience, a pesky peccadillo of modern slashers that will not go away despite the fact that it’s been over 20 years since Wes Craven blessed/cursed the genre with the conceit in Scream.

After the bravura opening scenes which feature some bang-up kills such as a neck-slash and a face scalding in a pot of boiling water, all rendered with impressive practical effects grue, we then settle into present day where we learn that Fisher’s rampage was halted by a timely bullet from the gun of Sheriff Arkin (the late, great Robert Z’Dar to whom the film is dedicated).

Our amiable protagonist is the betrothed Jeremiah (Moorehead), lead singer of the multi-racial, light-reggae/rap hybrid band Heart Eaters. And on the keys is Jeremiah’s bud Ryan Tate, née Fisher, the son of the notorious Bunny Killer, who miraculously survived his father’s rampage. After band practice, the members and their respective significant others gather around the bonfire to get wasted and play around with a spirit board. They devise the brilliant idea to contact the spirit of Fisher Sr., and aided and abetted by the mysterious “Postman” next door (First Jason Ari Lehman), succeed in making contact. Soon, Fisher Jr. is possessed by the soul of his dead father, and after acquiring pa’s tools of his trade (the mask and his ax), the massacre begins anew with the provision that Fisher must kill all who were involved in resuscitating him lest he perish again.

Easter Sunday is good fun. The kills are plentiful and are rendered, for the most part, practically (CG is utilized for some of the more outlandish gore gags). The cast is uniformly strong, and the thrills and kills are punctuated by plenty of humor — some quite funny, while others, like the aforementioned meta references to past horror flicks, a tad tiresome.

Considering that it was made on a shoestring ($10,000), Easter Sunday looks pretty good, with some sharp elements of style and impressive camera work. The film could have used a some more judicious editing as it does tend to tire before the final act, but ultimately, there’s enough heart, humor and grisly, gory kills within to warrant a viewing.

A worthy addition to the pantheon of holiday horrors.

***1/2 (out of 5)

The wonderful thing about horror is titles often double as summaries. No explanation required for The Toolbox Murders. You got murders, you got a toolbox. None of this, what in hell is a Darjeeling and what’s limiting it? Or, what’s a Hudsucker and who’s its proxy?

Nah, The Toolbox Murders is exactly as promised. There’s a creepy giallo-type killer in a ski mask hunting tenants of an LA apartment complex.

A video nasty banned in the UK (1982 to 2000), and finally released with nearly two minutes chopped out, you could say The Toolbox Murders built up a bit of a reputation, much of it deserved.

Bolt your doors. In this apartment block, management doesn’t even spring for extra security when unit after unit is suddenly becoming available…

The film mutates from a stalk-and-slash police procedural into a talky psychological thriller midway through. And that’s the part that actually makes it memorable, strangely enough.

The LAPD abandons any pretense of basic police work that a viewer could glean from watching a few episodes of Blue Bloods. To wit: not immediately sussing out that the entries weren’t forced, therefore the culprit is either known to everyone in the building or can let themselves in, or both. The biggest mystery of all is why they don’t immediately cast suspicions at the weirdo superintendent.

TOOLBOX MURDERS — Not David Cassidy and not-the-lovechild-of-Wayne-Gretzky-and- Ellen channel their inner sleuths.

Attractive women along the covered/uncovered spectrum are offed using a variety of implements that can be found at Lowe’s. One’s even pierced with a nail gun (for those of you interested in horror movie weapons, please check out our acclaimed book Death by Umbrella!)

There’s even a scene that’s like Jack’s forced entry in The Shining, but HEEEEEEERRRREE the killer doesn’t bother speaking while going about his grisly business.

When young Joey’s teen sister goes missing, he takes matters (and his Ellen DeGeneres bangs) into his own hands, perusing the building to find clues since Los Angeles’s finest have clearly dropped the ball. For his efforts, cops actually haul HIS behind in for questioning, even though Joey has absolutely no motive to speak of.

B-movie icon Cameron Mitchell (The Swarm/Blood and Black Lace) is the building super and his nephew is played by Wesley Eure (a soap opera regular who was actually conscripted to join The Partridge Family, lest you think the cheap, caption joke at his expense has no basis in truth).

The Toolbox Murders was given a new lease on life with a 2004 reboot. Tobe Hooper did it, minus the definite article. It’s not the worst such film (The buggy Nic Cage remake of The Wicker Man makes a compelling case for that) but it’s far from one of the best (Invasion of the Body Snatchers/Dawn of the Dead).

***1/4 (out of 5)

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