Lumberjack Man (2015)

Some decent kills completely ruined by horrible acting, dialog and lame attempts at humor. Avoid this one unless its just to goof on.

A bunch of rather older-looking kids travel to a Christian camp out in the woods. There's a lot of painful silliness the bus. Once they arrive we meet their ridiculous leader, a pretty girl also in charge, and the cook(?). It's not long before they start taking their clothes off and the marijuana jokes begin. For some reason only one pair of girls seem to be Christian, the rest not so much. Meanwhile some stranger is traveling in the direction of the camp. He stops at the park ranger office to warn that everyone is going to die and they should evacuate immediately. As evidence he offers some old newspaper clippings.But of course he's right. By now someone or something dragging some large-pancake cart has started killing kids. It takes a while before the guy who's some researcher arrives at the camp and warns them. At that point we learn who the killer is and why he kills. It's a rather ridiculous explanation that I won't give here. Soon enough the killer arrives in the middle of dining hall and the mayhem is on. At this point the movie decides who the lead characters are and those will have figure out a way to eliminate this killer for good.I really like the spirit in which this movie was made. I'm all for 80's-style raunchy teen slasher flicks. But as often happens, they had to ruin it by making it a parody/comedy. One movie-making convention seems to be that if you combine teens and violence you have to mask it as a comedy. Unfortunately making comedy and even more so, parody, is far more challenging than straight-forward horror. There are couple of good lines though.Lumberjack Man is 1:45 hours--at least 15 minutes too long, a strange decision when you don't have a lot of budget. Another convention of low-budget movie-making is that you've got to have at least one big name in your cast. In this case it's Michael Madsen who does a good job, not taking the role too seriously. The rest of the main cast does surprisingly well. All of them give committed performances. The problem is the silliness factor, not the acting. One weakness of this movie is that it really doesn't give us a lead character for which to care. Of course, it's the girl who doesn't take her clothes off who will end up being the lead, but for most of the movie, she isn't. For a movie like this, the cast isn't particularly attractive. Brina Palencia in some tertiary role is lovely though. Then there are some porn stars here for some reason.I'm very conflicted about this movie. I enjoyed the gore, violence, and nudity but hated the goofiness. The movie-makers have some talent and enthusiasm but botched it.

This is meant to be part of the After Dark's 8 films to die for Horrorfest. I am not fussy when it comes to horror, but their standards are REALLY sliding! This was badly acted, scripted, shot and in fact bad in every department. The comedy falls flat. The characters' stupidity is beyond reason! They are stereotyped, unlikeable brain-dead twits! They stand there while the killer prepares to kill them! The killer's only weakness is an allergy to pancake syrup?! I mean WHAT THE %3@&! Another gripe is the very long running time of 105 minutes. It should be cut down to 80 minutes. The content of this movie does not have enough for the excessive running time. This is not a B movie in a good way....This is a complete disaster! Michael Madsen appears to really need a paycheck for appearing in this one! My very first F in the usually high standard After Dark label. AVOID!!!!

If ANY director decides he/she is going for black comedy, they have to walk a very fine line otherwise their picture is going to fail and fail horribly. Such is the case in "Lumberjack Man," another in After Dark's compilation for this year. It started with great promise. A group of foul-mouthed teenagers is on their way to summer bible camp. I think the total IQ on the bus might have been 25, but I can deal with that. Their leading camp counselor is a dork you just want to beat over the head with a large object. Of course, every boy (save one) has only one thing on their mind and you can imagine what that is. They are pursued by a doctor (played by Michael Madsen) who is trying to advise the locals of the impending disaster unless someone can stop "Lumberjack Man." Madsen does not take his part seriously, which was a nice change. In fact, he's one of the few bright spots in the picture. It was the director's decision to take this movie so over-the-top where the mistake was made. I don't mind "camp." In fact, it can be rather refreshing in a genre that's gone mainly to the dogs. However, in this case, the director decided he had to constantly club the viewer over the head with language, nudity, and plain old stupidity to make the movie likable/watchable . BIG MISTAKE. If you're going for "black comedy" or "camp," you simply HAVE to make some of your characters likable, but most of all, BELIEVABLE. Only the worst of caricatures were in this movie, from the methed-out bus driver to the bimbos. There was nothing but a constant stream of the f- bomb, boobies, and tepid CGI kills. As for the villain, I've seen better masks on "Face Off." There are no scares, no tension (you see the "monster" from the get-go), and no connection between characters. The movie is rated "R" for constant language, nudity, and some horror violence. Strike "2" After Dark. I've got two more installments I'm going to watch tonight.