‘Butchers Bluff’ VOD Review
Stars: William Instone, Michael Fischer, Paige Steakley, Johnny Huang, Samantha Holland, Kayla Anderson, Dakota Millett, Santiago Sky, Brinke Stevens, Bill Johnson, Paul T. Taylor, Jeremy London, Bill Oberst Jr. | Written by William Instone, Renfield Rasputin | Directed by William Instone, Matt Rifley
Billed by its distributor Breaking Glass Pictures as “A Modern Slasher in the style of the 1980s,” Butchers Bluff gets off to an appropriate start with a gratuitous display of breasts as a couple go at it in a pick-up. And it’s not long after that that they fall victim to The Hogman, an escaped mental patient named Alex (William Instone; The Sawyer Massacre, Damsel of the Doomed), who allegedly lives in this stretch of woods and is responsible for 28 deaths over the past twenty years.
This has caught the attention of a group of college students, after Roger (Michael Fischer; Up on the Housetop, A Stream That Led to Nowhere) stumbles upon the story, and he and his associates Nicole (Paige Steakley; Sacred Mask, Lowriders vs Zombies from Space) and Derick (Johnny Huang; Attack of the Unknown, Fear the Walking Dead) decide to make a film a documented on the subject for their next assignment for Prof. Hooper’s class and for a bit of fun on the side, they bring along their friends Samantha (Samantha Holland; The Massacre on Halloween Night, Eyes of a Roman) Tina (Kayla Anderson, When Wendy Grew Up, Generation Hope), Bobby (Dakota Millett; Time to Fight, Alita: Battle Angel) and Jake (Santiago Sky; Hollow Lake, The Blood Order) for some after hours partying, what else is there to do in the middle of nowhere?
In Alex’s hometown they get some interesting interviews, from the mother (Brinke Stevens; Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, Smart House) of the girl we saw killed at the beginning of the film as well as one with one of Hogman, aka Alex’s orderlies (Bill Johnson; Future-Kill, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) before he escaped from a locked cell. They also have a run-in with Sheriff Joe (Paul T. Taylor; Hellraiser: Judgment, Andromeda) which unfortunately for them doesn’t scare them off. Because, as we already know The Hogman isn’t just an urban, or rural if you prefer, legend, he’s real and is just as willing to prey on out-of-towners as he is on locals.
Directors William Instone and Matt Rifley (SoulMates, Among the Dead) obviously had a bit more money at their disposal than most other indie filmmakers, allowing them to cast so many familiar names, Jeremy London (The Black Mass, Mallrats) and Bill Oberst Jr. (The Black Eyed Children, Everybody Dies by the End) also make an appearance and to allow special makeup effects guy Josh Ibach (Alive: An Undead Survival Series, The Art of Massacre) put plenty of the gore from the script by Instone and the hopefully pseudonymous Renfield Rasputin on the screen.
Thankfully the script is worthy of its budget managing to stay interesting as the students search for evidence but come up empty-handed, until the evidence comes looking for them. We get interesting characters, solid dialogue and well-staged killings from Alex’s backstory to keep us invested in the story as we wait for the filmmakers to get their proof. But who will survive and what will be left of them? While neither as gruesome nor as brutal as the press release led me to expect, Butchers Bluff is still a bloody good film which had me wondering why it had taken two years to get a release. Because while it’s not a new classic, it stands well above average in a popular and crowded genre.
With some solid performances, gore and skin, Butchers Bluff is the kind of film the slasher needs more of if it’s going to reclaim its place in the various horror subgenres. I just wish they had used a different animal for Alex’s costume, while it looks imposing, the pigman killer has been overused in films like Motel Hell to House of Many Sorrows and Tormented through Holland Road Massacre: The Legend of Pigman and even the Saw franchise. Maybe someone can have a real burst of creativity and come up with a new critter for killers to dress up as.
**** 4/5
Breaking Glass Pictures released Butchers Bluff to VOD and digital platforms this week; if you’re a slasher fan you’ll want to see this one!
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