There's an impostor stalking the on demand and dtv circuit. It looks like a horror film. It smells like a horror film. But beware; it's a sheep in wolf's clothing. Butcher House is a bland, stand-in. A film that's seen a few other horror movies and tries hard to emulate them, but fails miserably. Kinda like a frat guy trying to act punk rock, or really outta touch parent trying to relate to his hipster kid. Even worse, it's an obvious attempt to rake in some cash, by folks with little or no respect or understanding of horror films or what makes them work. For further proof take a look at the director's filmorgraphy.
BH moves through it's very, very long feeling 80 odd minutes with no sense of pace, horror or story telling. The plot revolves around five or six generic teen horror stereotypes (moonlighting as characters), whose job it is to take inventory of an abandoned butcher house. The filmmakers make these kids an "eclectic mix" of skaters and Goths. I suppose that's supposed to give it some kind of indie cred. But, to no avail. You could keep all the dialog exactly the same and stock the movie with Abercrombie and Fitch models with gap wardrobe and the movie would play no different. Except for one lame reference to the "Goth" girl. Blah, blah, blah exposition, ancient Indian burial ground (sure why not), ancient curse, Freddy Krueger riffing, poorly staged horror, some decent effects, overlong third act. End. Yay.
There's been a disturbing trend in horror films in last few years to over rely on quick cuts and close ups in murder and suspense scenes. This trend is taken to new lows in Butcher House (where the horror scenes look more like a 9 inch nails video than a horror movie.) When are they gonna learn that in suspense scenes more cuts = less tension. Of course that's a generality and there are plenty of successful exceptions. Butcher House is not one.
Waste of time. I save one or two's for totally inept movies. Butcher House it at least professionally put together. IE you can see and hear everything. On second thought maybe it's better if we couldn't.
BH moves through it's very, very long feeling 80 odd minutes with no sense of pace, horror or story telling. The plot revolves around five or six generic teen horror stereotypes (moonlighting as characters), whose job it is to take inventory of an abandoned butcher house. The filmmakers make these kids an "eclectic mix" of skaters and Goths. I suppose that's supposed to give it some kind of indie cred. But, to no avail. You could keep all the dialog exactly the same and stock the movie with Abercrombie and Fitch models with gap wardrobe and the movie would play no different. Except for one lame reference to the "Goth" girl. Blah, blah, blah exposition, ancient Indian burial ground (sure why not), ancient curse, Freddy Krueger riffing, poorly staged horror, some decent effects, overlong third act. End. Yay.
There's been a disturbing trend in horror films in last few years to over rely on quick cuts and close ups in murder and suspense scenes. This trend is taken to new lows in Butcher House (where the horror scenes look more like a 9 inch nails video than a horror movie.) When are they gonna learn that in suspense scenes more cuts = less tension. Of course that's a generality and there are plenty of successful exceptions. Butcher House is not one.
Waste of time. I save one or two's for totally inept movies. Butcher House it at least professionally put together. IE you can see and hear everything. On second thought maybe it's better if we couldn't.