B.C. Butcher comes billed as the world’s first prehistoric slasher movie. While it takes a while before it leans into the slasher elements, it does kick off with a juicy gut-munching scene. The good news is it’s only 51 minutes long. The bad news is it wears out its welcome almost immediately. Hey, look on the bright side: It’s only 51 minutes long. I for one can’t imagine sitting through 90 minutes of this.
Neandra (Leilani Fideler) is the leader of a tribe of sexy cavegirls who has the hots for a caveman named Rex (Kato Kaelin!!!). She’s completely unaware that the tribeswomen are all secretly banging him on the side. After Neandra kills a cavegirl for messing around with her man, a disfigured caveman takes revenge by killing off the women in the tribe one by one.
B.C. Butcher was released by Troma, and while it’s pretty weak in just about every way, it’s definitely the kind of thing that’s in their wheelhouse. It looks better than many of their films, but it’s just as insufferable as many of their failed horror-comedies. The ladies in the cast do what they can, although I can’t help but imagine that this would’ve been a hundred times more tolerable if the cavegirls showed some skin. We do get a cavegirl catfight set to faux-Benny Hill music though.
If they couldn’t deliver on the skin, they could’ve at least doubled down on the gore and/or comedy. With the exception of the opening gore scene, most of the kills are bloodless or (even worse) occur offscreen. There’s only one real laugh in the whole thing too. (When a tribe member announces she has to use the “little cavegirl’s room”.) Heck, even some unintentional laughs would’ve been appreciated.
B.C. Butcher was directed by 17-year-old Kansas Bowling. I can’t say the results are close to good, but I can say I was impressed by the fact she was able to assemble a cast that included Kato Kaelin (who flubs most of his lines), Kadeem Hardison (who narrates), and Rodney Bingenheimer (who introduces a caveman band who play instruments made of watermelons). She was also somehow able to get the rights to play “Alley Oop” over the credits, so respect. Because of that, I can’t completely dismiss it.
Bowling later went on to play one of the Manson girls in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
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