Teen Massacre (2004)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Jon Knautz

Writers:

Matt Gervais (writer)
Jon Knautz (writer)

Genre:

Short | Horror

Plot:

Four unsuspecting teens are sent to a local forest to work on what they think is a science experiment for class. What they don't know is that something more than just samples of dirt awaits them. |

Plot Keywords:

Forest | Murder | Teenkill

Cast

Trevor Matthews	...	Pete
Joe Newton	...	The Beast
Mike Clark	...	Lab Assistant #1
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Stephanie Caruso	...	Chelsea
Mike Clark	...	Smoking Scientist
Bryan Farr	...	Mr. Hame
Matt Gervais	...	Claude
Patrick Henry	...	Louis
Wade McAllister	...	Lab assistant

Runtime:

Canada:16 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Filming Locations:

Kanata, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Brookstreet Pictures

A 'home-made' horror short with guts.

A group of students, testing soil samples in a forest as part of a science project, chance upon a wild-man trapped in a (very flimsy looking) wire cage. Rather stupidly, they decide to release the caged man, who proceeds to tear the dumb kids limb-from-limb.

Just like his debut feature-length movie, 'Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer', which wastes over an hour going nowhere, Jon Knautz's early 'home-made' short Teen Massacre (available as an extra on the 'Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer' DVD) suffers from spending too long in introducing it's (irritating) characters: half of it's running time is wasted on inane chit-chat when it would have been more wisely spent delivering what the title promises (although at least, in this instance, the 'padding' only amounts to six minutes).

Still, once the teens eventually begin to be massacred, things start to look up a little. Despite its ultra-cheap production values, lousy acting, and terrible script, this energetic effort succeeds in being fairly entertaining thanks to plenty of OTT bargain-basement splatter FX achieved using buckets of home-made blood and off-cuts from the local butcher shop: a throat is ripped out, an arm is torn off and thrust down the victim's throat, and entrails are yanked out left, right and centre.

Teen Massacre may have been made for peanuts by a bunch of amateurs with more enthusiasm than experience, but I think I actually prefer it very slightly to the bigger budgeted and more polished 'Jack Brooks'. Thus it gets a slightly better rating: 4.5/10 (although it's still not good enough to round up to a 5).