Butcher House (2006)

This is a low-budget, shot on video film about a group of teens who are sent into an abandoned, cursed meat-packing plant to take an inventory of its contents. The teens reawaken an Aztec-demon-possessed butcher who killed his coworkers 40 years ago (oops!) and are possessed and murdered one by one.The good: nice location, reasonably well-lit, though more variation in the large empty rooms would have added to the film. For the most part the actors (especially the main teen in charge of the inventory) do a good job.The bad: hammy butcher villain isn't scary, Aztec curse "rules" never really explained, little plot problems (characters screaming at one end of a basement aren't heard by other characters a few hallways/rooms away?), awkwardly handled nudity.You've got a ghost/demon that only appears to people who are just about to be killed, yet the film never really does anything special with that. The characters always wait/watch him close in on them and kill them, instead of, say, telling their friends where he's at in the room so they can help fight him off. Some scenes of the butcher menacing a teen (especially the final showdown) are ANNOYINGLY edited with lots of cuts. Eventually the scenes become boring.After watching the movie I was left with the feeling that it could have been so much more.

I do not know how anyone could give this a rating over 5 let alone close to 10. It was painful to sit through. The characters were cliché, the special effects average and the script was not anything special. I could not give anything less than one star or I would have.I am a fan of horrors and can often see enjoyment in even lowly ranked movies. This one though was a major letdown. The story of a cursed house, a evil butcher and a group of teens could be made to work, with the right producer.I would say I wish I had never watched it, but I collect horrors so this is just another for that. It is not something I will ever watch again and I hope my review saves someone else the time I wasted.

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.

Finally a bloody horror flick! Rented on video on demand and loved it. Although I wasn't sold on the Aztec story, I was sold on the Butcher. I don't see this movie as a big movie, but it does rank up there with a good horror. I have to disagree with "asshemp" on the story. I liked the story and the way the teens were caught up in the Butcher's killings. By the way the blood was great! This kind of flick wouldn't work with comedy, what worked was the way the Butcher killed the kids as they were stuck in the old place. I do agree it seemed a bit classic horror, but I had fun, so what.The acting was great, and I thought the director made it very scary, and the way the lighting and the dirty look of the scenes. Although the characters were typical, I thought they were believable. A great change from the bimbos and dumb jocks. Refreshing!