Billy Club (2013)

4 friends who played Little League have reunited to pay tribute to their teammates who were murdered 15 years earlier, only to have a vengeful masked killer with a weaponized baseball bat targeting them.

Directors:

Drew Rosas, Nick Sommer

Writers:

Drew Rosas, Nick Sommer

Stars:

Marshall Caswell, Erin Hammond, Nick Sommer

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Marshall Caswell	...	Bobby Spooner
Erin Hammond	...	Alison McKenzie
Nick Sommer	...	Kyle Tripper
Max Williamson	...	Danny Evans
Mark Metcalf	...	The Umpire
Mathew Dunlop	...	Devon
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Thaine H. Allison Jr.	...	Man Behind Gas Station
Al Bardin	...	Sheriff Hicks
Peter Batchelder	...	Sports Announcer
Suziey Block	...	Nurse
Trevor Burke	...	Young Kyle
Bobby Ciraldo	...	Cop 1
Kelly Cunningham	...	Vanessa
Michael Denk	...	Mitch
Peter Donalds	...	Baseball Bar Patron

Storyline

Fifteen years after a gruesome triple homicide devastated their Little League baseball team, four friends reunite to commemorate their dead coach and fallen teammates. A mystery unfolds as the secrets from their past return to haunt them and a vengeful killer, hidden by an antique umpire's mask, returns to even the score.

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Plot Keywords:

little league | baseball | halloween | revenge | bully | 

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Taglines:

He's back... to even the score

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Genres:

Comedy | Horror

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Certificate:

Unrated

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film won the "Best Feature" award at the Hollywood Horror Fest, the "Best Horror Film" award at the Phoenix Film Festival, the "Best Wisconsin Film" award at the Beloit International Film Festival, and the "Award of Excellence" at Indy Fest.

User Reviews

Fantastic Camerawork for a Forgettable Story

Most great indie horror films are a testament to hard work, a good script, and great cast in spite of lesser production values and a series of technical flaws. There's potential in them even if they need a fresh coat of paint. Billy Club is, surprisingly, the opposite.

Billy Club looks like a million bucks. There's no doubt the people behind this movie worked hard, long hours to make this movie look as professional and polished as its low budget would allow. Framing and angles are inventive and cinematic and most sound cues are crisp and well-mixed.

Billy Club should be a head above the rest of these low budget slasher flicks, but it's not. Despite the impressive glow up, this owes more to the no-budget absurd straight to video slashers of the early 2000s than any of the golden age classics like My Bloody Valentine or Prom Night.

As a concept, Billy Club seems promising. You see, in the early 80's, a few kids and their baseball coach were found murdered on the field and a crazy kid named Billy was sent away for it. Years later, he's let go from the nuthouse and starts taking out the rest of his surviving teammates because they once pulled a near-deadly prank on him. He's actually starting to make sense and I can understand his reasonings. These people are awful.

Billy Club suffers from that ever-present likability problem most post-2000 slasher flicks have. No one in this movie is worth caring about and, even if they are, they end up doing something incredibly stupid just seconds later. The amount of characters in this film who get out of a car in a secluded area and just start walking into the woods for seemingly no reason is staggering. You can feel the screenwriters realizing they desperately need to find a reason to get these characters alone, but this was the best they could come up with. And who can blame them? With characters as shallow as this, that probably was the thing that made the most sense for them at that point in the story.

What Billy Club does get right, it really gets right. The kill scenes are incredibly grisly and there are a few unforgettable images throughout the film. When the film's heroine comes across a macabre art installation of her friends at a secluded lake, you'll be hard pressed to not gasp in awe. It's a truly unforgettable image and any film is lucky to possess at least one of those, so you can't write Billy Club off completely.

It could have used another draft or two before production, but Billy Club does have its saving graces.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 October 2013 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

D-Cent Entertainment, Decent Entertainment, Surgery Room

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD