Before his movie The Slashening (blog here), indie director Brandon Bassham brought the sex and slashing with horror comedy Fear Town, USA. I’m hooked on his brand of spoof slashers—raunchy, bloody, and loaded with jokes that work.
Fear Town, USA’s opening kill features a 1950s couple parked in the woods when they hear a radio report about an escaped mental patient. The greaser dude prepares to take on the killer in a perfect satire of ammosexual mentality.
Next, we meet our modern day kids, all heading into the woods for a big party at Lake Blood. There’s a group of geek virgins, a couple of homophobic douche bags, a gaggle of horny girls, a chick being haunted by a dead friend, and an awkward chick who can’t land a man. On top of that, there’s a masked killer and a hooded cult.
Just as in The Slashening, we are bombarded by dirty jokes that put movies like American Pie to shame—and once again, it works not only because they’re good jokes, but because the cast has a strong grasp of comic timing and delivery. In between the laughs, the masked killer is taking out partygoers left and right. While the first few kills have a more sterilized, “off screen” feel as in some of the lower-budget slashers of the 80s, the gore comes later, and it’s the kind of gross out slasher comedy stuff I love. My favorite is by far a kill that manages to combine a machete, oral, and anal all in one shot.
And speaking of anal…there’s loads of gay stuff going on, and I’m not talking the usual lesbian baiting for the straight boy audience. First, we have the two homophobic guys, but let’s just say they “evolve” on the issue as the film progresses. They are actually forced to face the subject even before they end up naked in a room together. When they first arrive at the party, the host points out a whole bunch of gays in attendance; these gay boys later have a serious make out session during the musical number (I’ll get to that). Also at the party is another cutie who gives a drunken, very detailed confession about the time he sucked a dick.
And speaking of sucking dick (as you can see by these segues, this is my kind of movie), there’s an oral sex scene that puts most of those she-male pornos from the 80s to shame (don’t judge—I worked at a video store back then). Angela may have been a horror show in Sleepaway Camp, but we’ve come a long way, and Fear Town, USA is probably the first horror film to deliver an explicit, sex positive transgender scene. Equal opportunity exploitation is key to equality, so it’s done in a totally tasteless manner, of course. Actually, there’s probably a lot of taste (yes, it’s that extreme).
After a gag like that, you’d think there would be nothing left to talk about, but the movie doesn’t stop there. We get a hillbilly with an eye patch to give it that genuine backwoods horror feel…
a séance with an insult ghost…
a cult kidnapping, a van full of sexual deviants…
a spoof of 3D horror films…
the brilliant musical performance “Fuck My Life” by the entire cast, a final girl chase, and…um…a happy ending.
I’ve already checked. Brandon Bassham has a couple of projects in the works for next year. I’m so there.
All over this one…with major backwood!