THE KILLAGE (2011)

Directed by Joe Bauer, Starring: Rita Artmann, Dryden Bingham, Laura Jane Turner. Comedy Horror, AUS, 2011, 102mins, Cert 15.

A group of eleven young employees and a seemingly ineffectual instructor embark on a weekend-long work retreat at a camping site in the middle of the Australian countryside. Unfortunately one of the group turns out to be a masked killer who proceeds to dispatch them one by one in various ‘creative’ ways.

Director, writer, actor, co-producer, co-cinematographer, editor, co-casting director, ADR mixer, sound editor, sound mixer, visual effects artist and (finally) colourist Joe Bauer’s ultra-low budget slasher film spoof is a low-brow hit and miss (mostly miss) redundant attempt to trash a sub-genre which needed no further trashing or mockery after SCARY MOVIE.

Shot over two long weekends (with a further week of ADR needed to re-record all the dialogue) – I accept that it is a minor miracle that the film ever got completed at all. But, to quote Jeff Goldblum’s character in JURASSIC PARK, perhaps the filmmakers were “... so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should”.

Here at Fleapits we will always try to champion low-budget efforts, and I approached THE KILLAGE with an open-minded smile on my face. However, my enthusiasm rapidly started to evaporate within minutes as one by one the parade of crudely drawn (with a crayon) stereotypical characters were embarrassingly introduced without the merest hint of a decent gag in sight.

I actually enjoyed the first SCARY MOVIE. Sure a great deal of its laughs came from non-genre related sexual jokes and set-pieces, but in amongst Anna Faris’ bat-infested pubic bush type gags, there was also some perceptively spot on winks to the genre. My favourite sight-gag being when Ghostface appeared by a tree and was then spotted scurrying behind it - referencing Michael Myers’ stalking of Laurie Strode in Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN. Bauer stages a parody of a jump-scare scene from another Carpenter classic, THE THING. Unfortunately Bauer kills the joke by allowing it to repetitiously drag on way past the initial knowing titter. (He’s guilty of gag overkill later on when the ‘final girl’ really, really, makes sure the killer is dead...)  I did however like the “Welcome to Camp Yurulgundie” sign (geddit?).

As the ‘final girl’ (it’s Emily by the way, but that’s hardly a spoiler) Rita Artmann gives the least objectionable performance given the frequently puerile nonsense going on around her. There’s an outdoor exercise scene that makes CARRY ON CAMPING look like it was penned by Noel Coward in comparison.

"Ooh Matron! Take them away!"

Director Bauer’s guitar playing minstrel-like character Gus vies for the most implausibly written character title with the moronic ‘Jock’ who inexplicably spends a large portion of the film stark naked – complete with an unfathomably long penis for good measure (no pun intended).

The actual murders range from decent(ish) - death by bong – to the (why oh why not funny) ill-judged CG decapitated talking head crapiness.

I think the reason THE KILLAGE fails to deliver is largely down to the fact that there just isn’t any real love or appreciation for the genre it’s supposedly referencing. It can still be done, take for example the wonderful TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL. This combined a clever comedic spin on the backwoods hillbilly horror sub-genre and created two genuinely likeable characters the audience could root for - even as the bodies started piling up. Whilst the largely budget CG body count in THE KILLAGE is also piled high, the comedy is pitched so low, and the characters so unsympathetically loathsome that not only do you rarely laugh, you just don’t care either. 

Paul Worts

*(out of 5*)