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Dancing_P [ 4.0 ]
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David Arquette makes a very inauspicious directing debut with this jokey yet laughless slasher. Having learnt a lot, I suppose, from his time on the Scream movies, Arquette delivers a self-reflexive slasher film that sets itself up as a satire on the Reagan generation but actually amounts to little else than Arquette and co. fucking around in the woods.
A bunch of hippies (Lukas Haas and Jason Mewes amongst them) head out to the middle of the woods for a music festival run by shady promoter Paul Reubens (why not). Little do they know that an axe-wielding maniac in a Reagan mask is running through the woods chopping up hippies of their ilk.
It's kind of a fun concept and Arquette obviously means for this to be pretty light-hearted but nowhere does he actually deliver the goods. Beyond the character interactions at the beginning and some fun cameos, it's pretty damn generic slice-n-dice action. Since it's supposed to be all tongue-in-cheek, it's not terribly suspenseful but it's never really funny, either. Nothing much is made of the Reagan angle or even the hippie angle; beyond a name case and a higher budget than most of these throwaway slasher affairs, there's very little to this one.
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DokBrowne [ 7.5 ]
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An indie horror comedy with political overtones directed by David Arquette (!). Pretty entertaining, spoofing both right wing fanaticism and hippie culture in the middle of a lovely homage to '80s slasher films (the killer is a guy in a Ronald Reagan costume chopping up hippies in the forest during a beatnik convention). Co-stars Thomas Jane (as the sheriff), Jaime King (as the traumatized heroine), Lukas Haas (still wondering what his career trajectory is supposed to be), Marsha Mason (still hot as ever), Jason Mewes, Arquette himself, Balthazar Getty, and Paul Reubens as a profanity-loving entrepeneur.
And if it sounds cheesy, that's because it's trying to be. Some of the political satire - aimed at Reagan (who I actually liked as a president, but that's beside the point) and Bush Jr. - has potential, but doesn't really go far enough beyond brief references. Still a fun splatter movie with a clever streak and a novel concept (instead of the usual holiday or haunted house theme, we get bipartisan political madness!), the kind they don't make too much of anymore. It has some annoying factors, like odd camera work at times and some obnoxious comedy, but it maintains a mostly solid tone throughout, and technically speaking the directing is good for both this type of movie and this type of actor behind the lens. Nah, just kidding, Arquette - I always liked you, even when you dare me not to in crap like "Ready to Rumble". I was particularly fond of the visual aids - the lighting, the heavy fog, the thicket of forestry all adding to the atmosphere.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.4 |
| No. Ratings | : 2 | |
| No. Reviews | : 2 | |
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