It’s a gay giallo spoof, a zombie musical, and a slasher. I wouldn’t quite call these three films horror comedies, but they do offer varying levels of camp, quirkiness, and satire.
CUT! (2021)
Despite being loaded with drag queens, gender-bending elements, and campy takes on giallo style, this Spanish film is really not a horror comedy so much as it is a notably serious spoof of giallos.
The exaggerated nods to giallo death scenes, music, narrative, and visual presentation are definitely easy to appreciate for fans of the subgenre, but they aren’t particularly funny.
Even so, this is still horror lite, for the kills aren’t brutal or bloody, which I think is the one missed opportunity. If you’re going to mimic giallos for a queer audience, you need to go for it all the way. On the bright side, there are a couple of gay sex scenes, plus plenty of drag performances sprinkled throughout the film, one of them a duet with lyrics that poke fun at giallo tropes.
Plus, there’s Cut! butt…
Cut! queens…
Cut! cum…
The plot focuses on a director trying to make a totally meta gay giallo…making this whole movie totally meta. Problem is anyone he comes across during production ends up being killed off.
It’s not long before two detectives are on the case, and we get to see into their personal lives a bit. Very giallo. This is where the film is interesting in its presentation of sexuality. One detective is a lesbian, yet most of the female roles are played by drag queens, so she ends up in bed with a drag queen. At the same time, the male detective has a wife who loves giallos, and she is also played by a drag queen. In each case we’re left wondering if we are supposed to assume the drag queens are identifying as cis women (think Hairspray) or being presented as trans women, because most of the other drag queens in the movie are literally drag queens.
The satirical nature of the film overshadows any whodunit aspects, which is perhaps the biggest weakness here aside from the tame death scenes, but as a gay flick, it doesn’t hold back and I totally ordered the DVD to add to my gay horror movie collection, plus it now has a home on the complete homo horror movies page.
POWERTOOL CHEERLEADERS VS. THE BOYBAND OF THE SCREECHING DEAD (2022)
It’s another movie for the screamin’ and singin’ horror musicals page. Sort of a pop rock musical with some catchy melodies, campy moments, and at times some good gore, this film still doesn’t quite live up to its name. For starters, the cheerleaders and the boy band look like they’re about ready to star in The Big Chill when they should look like they’d give anything to be in a David DeCoteau film circa 2002. On top of that, this horror musical feels like it’s much more focused on too many characters than it is on the horror or the music—ironically, a totally minor character actually gets a whole solo song about how secondary he is to the plot. Clever.
Anyway, we meet a waitress with a phobia to cheerleaders who decides to conquer her fear by forming a cheerleading team and competing in a TV talent show.
This stems from a sort of nightmare she has in which she is visited by her freakishly awesome dead grandmother, who leaves behind a special supernatural necklace. I wish grandma would have left her dead ass behind, because she’s the best part of the movie.
As we then meet members of the cheer team and the boy band, it all feels surreal and avant-garde, with some cartoonish, colorful, theater stage set moments thrown in to capture that musical feel. Also, our main cheerleader reconnects with an old flame, who is now in the boy band.
After the awesome encounter with grandma, things really slow down for a majority of the film. The boys get into a car accident, the girls mess with grandma’s necklace, and the boys come back as zombies.
They are zombies for a good portion of the film, yet there’s no actual zombie zaniness until the final act, when the girls bust onto the talent show set with chainsaws and other power tools to defeat the boy band on live TV.
Carnage finally ensues, but the movie needed much more of it throughout its runtime.
KILLHER (2022)
More quirky than comedy, this oddball flick about a group of girls camping in the woods spends much of its time trying to build a red herring threat while simultaneously making it pretty obvious who the killer is from the start. Defying expectations with a hint of subversion doesn’t quite pan out when the audience is very much expecting the defiance.
We meet a girl getting married who has two longtime friends and a new friend that isn’t quite embraced by her old besties.
The new girl seems outgoing and fun except for two things. First, she’s obsessed with horror and is constantly pulling scare pranks. And second, she is obviously obsessed with the bride-to-be. Personally, I’m obsessed with the groom-to-be.
The girls set up camp and immediately discover a mysterious, burly man is camped in a tent just yards away.
As suspicious as he’s made out to be, giving off major Wolf Creek vibes, he’s quite clearly a pretty chill guy…and the new friend into horror is so obviously off her rocker. But are they both just red herring?
The killer is actually a hoot. Although there is no true horror excitement until 47 minutes into the film beyond endless horror pranks the crazy friend plays on the others, the killer is virtually a one-person show of erratic entertainment and very reminiscent of Angela as portrayed by Pamela Springsteen in the Sleepaway Camp sequels.
But here’s the problem. There aren’t enough victims, so irrelevant side characters are brought in to give the killer a motivation to make someone else look like the killer. It adds an unnecessary complication to an otherwise simple slasher plot.
Also, the kill count is low, and there’s nothing in the way of scares or suspense. However, the last few minutes bring a chaotic killer energy that you end up wishing had been delivered all along, because the finale is a blast.
