Meet the half ambiguously gay horror comedy duo

Imagine the slapstick humor of Abbott & Costello or the Three Stooges taking on modern horror clichés and you pretty much have the Caesar and Otto films.

Creator and director Dave Campfield stars in the movies as Caesar, described as a flamboyant struggling actor. But is Caesar just a flamboyant straight man or is he gay? He gets very defensive whenever the subject of his sexuality is brought up. Meanwhile, his half-brother Otto, played by Paul Chomicki, is a pleasantly plump, clumsy dude.

Using a low-budget to his advantage, Campfield delivers some of the funniest nonsense visual film gags and rapid fire one-liners that are at times so dry and quick you might miss them if you don’t pay attention. He also hits his target market of horror fans with endless nods to the genre. I am hooked on these movies and hope Caesar and Otto continues as a horror series.

Caesar and Otto’s Summer Camp Massacre (2009)

Caesar and Otto’s Summer Camp Massacre is a warm up movie introducing us to the guys. Even more of a warm up is the short film Caesar and Otto Meet Dracula’s Lawyer, which is included on the DVD. This 15-minute campy short is loaded with horror in-jokes and features cameos by Lloyd Kaufman, Debbie Rochon, and Desiree “Aunt Martha” Gould.

Moving on to the main feature, we are treated to mega gory body parts in the opening. And then it’s right on to Caesar and Otto’s comic shtick! Brinke Stevens is Otto’s on again/off again girlfriend who needs to be bailed out of jail. But the guys have bigger problems; Caesar got into a fight with a mentally challenged man and now the police are after him. So the guys hide out…as summer camp counselors!

One of the other counselors is none other than…Felissa Rose! The chick from the original sleepaway camp nightmare is back where she belongs, and rumors still abound about what’s between her legs. And not surprisingly, people start turning up dead. There are campy gore scenes, gay jokes, and summer camp slasher parody. There are also nods to filmmakers Richard Griffin and the Polonia brothers for those of you who are seriously into indie horror. There’s also an appearance from Empire hottie Trai Byers!

Even Charlie Sheen’s brother Joe Estevez appears in the film, as well as in the bigger and better sequel….

Caesar and Otto’s Deadly Xmas (2012)

This time around, Caesar and Otto find themselves in the plot of Silent Night, Deadly Night. The movie is loaded with references to the original film and takes jabs at the second film. But the topper has to be Linnea Quigley as Caesar’s agent—who finds herself reliving her own scream queen past. Awesome.

Brinke Stevens returns as Otto’s sort of girlfriend. And Lloyd Kaufman has a cameo as Caesar and Otto’s grandfather—who made Caesar forever terrified of Santa when he was just a child by telling a story of all the horrible things Santa does to little boys’ penises.

Since Dave Campfield is from Long Island, there are hysterical regional gags about Long Island in the 80s, including references to the hair band Poison and TV shows like Who’s The Boss?

The basic plot (aside from stealing liberally from Silent Night, Deadly Night and just a tad from Gremlins) is that Caesar and Otto get jobs as holiday Santa and reindeer—and then Caesar convinces his new boss to do a low-budget holiday horror movie. The jokes about making indie films abound, as do jokes about Caesar’s sexuality and the sexuality of several of the other men in the cast. And of course, there’s a crazy killing Santa on the loose, so there’s plenty of blood flowing.

It’s nonstop fun from beginning to end for fans of slapstick humor and horror movies. Felissa Rose is back in a small cameo, as is Debbie Rochon. Some might also recognize the face of big guy Shawn C. Phillips, a young actor who is making an awesome career out of appearing in bad b-horror movies, including Ghost Shark, Girls Gone Dead, Chillerama, and even the gay horror flick Vampires Boys 2: The New Brood.

To top it all off, Caesar has a couple of scenes with his shirt open. DAMN! Dave Campfield has a tight little body! He kind of reminds me of Justin Long.

More horror comedies from Caesar and Otto?

While I was watching Caesar and Otto’s Deadly Xmas, all I kept thinking was, “They’ve made a summer camp horror and a Christmas horror. They need to do a Halloween horror.” And if the end of the film is any clue, there may just be one on the way. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, check out Dave Campfield (aka: Caesar) getting virtually naked with a hairy bear:

And then check out me making a fool of myself talking about the Ceasar & Otto films: