This is definitely an uneven selection of slashers I picked from my streaming watchlist, but are any of them worth a watch? Let’s find out.
AMERICAN SCARECROW (2020)
If only this film had recognized the opportunity embedded in its unintentional comedic moments, it could have gone a totally different route.
As far as killer scarecrow movies go, this is not a supernatural flick…it’s a guy in a scarecrow mask. So, it’s nothing more than a slasher.
After an opening “kill” scene in which a dude simply falls in a well from freight, we meet a group of friends that comes to an abandoned farmhouse to assess it for rehab and renovation. They explore the vacant house’s creepy nooks and crannies, one girl finds a diary that adds no significance to the plot, a little, scared girl shows up and also adds no value to the plot, and there’s a brief discussion of Native Americans having the land stolen from them…which…has no bearing on the plot.
What I’m saying is, there’s not much of a plot.
To pad the time, we see a random redneck enter a cornfield about 30 minutes in for a nicely crafted, claustrophobic chase scene in the rows, but there’s no screaming or blood when the scarecrow strikes. Sigh.
52 minutes in, one of the main dudes is killed by the scarecrow, at which point the slashing action takes off, and this becomes fairly watchable. It’s also where the humorous potential shines. The kills come across as funny, and one dude who gets his hand hacked off suddenly becomes hilarious as he keeps begging someone to rescue his severed extremity. I’m almost positive that this whole segment is intentionally funny, which makes me wonder why this tone wasn’t established earlier and carried through the movie.
The final chase and fight definitely deliver, so the film ends on a high note, even if there’s no clear explanation for the unclear unfolding of events.
THE OMICRON KILLER (2024)
Making the odd choice to cash in on a pandemic four years after it changed the world, this film is about a copycat killer following in the footsteps of a previous killer known as the New York “COVID killer” (because he wears a surgical mask). How is that for a weird setup? The original COVID killer is dead, so we never even get to see him in action. You’d think this was actually a sequel to another movie.
Adding to this bizarre setup, there’s a satanic cult, led by Felissa Rose, that hangs out in the cemetery throughout the movie trying to do a ritual to resurrect the original COVID killer.
Horror queen Lynn Lowry has a minor role as the head of police, but the detecting is done mostly by two recovering alcoholic dudes, which is when you realize this movie appears to be trying to come across at least in part as a horror comedy. Very confusing.
The copycat killer ends up in a hospital after his first three kills in an alley because the police think he was just defending himself against a trio of thugs…that he brutally killed. There are some weird characters at the hospital, including a nurse and a doctor, but the focus on them goes nowhere once the copycat killer escapes the hospital, killing everyone on his way out the door.
There’s virtually no plot to follow beyond the copycat killer being incensed that he is considered irrelevant because he’s just a pale imitation of the original COVID killer. Even news reporters are calling him a “weaker variant” (wink wink), which is when he goes out and buys a cooler mask to replace his plain old N95 mask.
The kill scenes, which just consist of taking out random people rather than relevant characters, are at least pretty intense, but the final battle between police and the copycat killer is a letdown.
There is, however, an epilogue scene that ties up one of the dangling subplots and promises a sequel with a much cooler looking killer.
TORTURE THE FLESH (2024)
The movie poster of a sexy neon glow killer mask says sleek, contemporary slasher, but the title tells the real story. There’s nothing sleek or sexy about the way the flesh is tortured in this throwback to serious video nasties, complete with grisly, old school practical effects.
Those gross death scenes are definitely the reason to watch this one, because the “mystery” is weak and the events that unfold between the kills are painfully repetitive as the movie tries to drive home the profiles of the minimal number of main characters so that they all seem like suspects. The overkill could have been paired down by editing out much of the repetition and trimming the movie down from a whopping 110 minutes to a leaner 90 minutes.
This is a purely misogynistic massacre movie with kills reminiscent of the gnarliest over-the-top deaths in late 70s/early 80s Euro horror. There’s plenty of female nudity as a nipple is cut off, faces are cut in half with buzz saws, fingers are chopped off, heads are bashed with a hammer, and not once, but twice, vaginas are stabbed repeatedly in explicit closeups.
While fucked up, the mutilations are definitely a way to balance out the plodding plot. One guy is dealing with his wife and daughter being victims of the killer, and he does a lot of moping around while grieving. There’s also an alcoholic, abusive detective on the case, along with his insecure, rookie partner. And just for good measure, we get Lynn Lowry again, this time as the ex-wife of the abusive detective.
Near the end of the film, we get a long strip club scene, because every sleazy horror flick needs one, and the film concludes in a warehouse with the main characters standing in a circle accusing each other of being the killer. It’s a bland finale that includes a shootout (yawn), and you’ll most likely guess who the killer is before the reveal.
