Headless Horseman, The Revenant, and Bloody Homecoming. Which was my fave?
HEADLESS HORSEMAN (2007)
Headless Horseman takes the classic story…and makes it a backwoods slasher. A group of kids is headed for a party. There are some pumpkins in their vehicle, mention of a costume worn the year before, and someone later promising the police that “this isn’t a Halloween prank”, so I assume they’re heading to a Halloween party, but the holiday isn’t given any significant attention. They get a flat and a country girl named Candy takes them to her dad’s repair shop. She tells them the Headless Horseman really existed and that her town suffered as a result. She also says the Washington Irving story was crap….
Before long, the kids are all being hacked to pieces by the Headless Horseman and there are buckets of CGI blood. Plenty of good kills in this one, and the Headless Horseman has a cool pumpkin head at one point that lights on CGI fire. He also starts to grow a real head as he kills more and more kids. Awesome.
It’s really just a whole lot of kids running around the woods and getting offed one-by-one while also contending with a crazy backwoods family. Richard Moll has a small part in the film—as a character named Kolchak! Homage to the Night Stalker, perhaps?
In the end, the classic Sleepy Hollow rule applies: cross the bridge and you’ll be safe! I’ve seen this flick on the SyFy Network, which is just where it belongs.
THE REVENANT (2009)
This is one bizarre film. It might be considered a horror comedy. It is funny at times, but it’s also dark and mean-spirited…and manages to use the word “fuck” so much for “comedy” purposes that it starts to just get annoying.
This army dude dies while on active duty then comes back to life, crawls out of his grave, and shows up at his buddy’s door. Before long, they determine he’s more vampire than zombie, so they start playing vigilante, killing thieves and rapists so he can suck their blood for sustenance. These dudes live in one of the worst cities ever! The crime is out of control!
There are plenty of humorous scenes in the flick, but it’s not the zombie/vampire buddy flick you’d expect. The film gets consistently darker as it progresses…and it runs a little too long at just a few minutes short of 2 hours!
The absolute best scene has to be the use of a vibrator as a speaking device for a dead dude. There’s also an odd moment of full-frontal male nudity at the end!
BLOODY HOMECOMING (2012)
This indie throwback to 80s slashers—particularly the Prom Night franchise—is the winner for me in this trio. During homecoming, a bunch of kids goes partying. A football player gets out of line and the others accidentally lock him in a burning room….
Like 3 years later, the same kids get “Happy Homecoming” notes in their lockers…and you know what that means. There’s a creepy janitor who keeps a fireman’s uniform in his room. The killer wears a fireman’s uniform. Yeah. The janitor totally isn’t the killer.
The plot and the relationship drama between the characters isn’t all that, but the classic slasher elements are what matter here. The kills are awesomely gruesome, there are some boobs, and the chase scene count is amazing! There’s even an homage to Wendy’s chase scene from Prom Night. In fact, Bloody Homecoming is a better Prom Night remake than the remake….
Other highlights include a gay dude, a bunch of body reveals at the end, and a nice modern twist ripped right from today’s crazy high school headlines! Bloody Homecoming is definitely one of the stronger indie slasher entries in recent times.
