“The Chooper” is a vengeful Native American spirit that haunts a dilapidated old shack in the middle of nowhere. He’s so famous that people come from miles around to spend the night in the shack just so they can get offed by the killer “ghost”. The caretaker, Daniel (Jason Wayne) keeps warning people to stay away, and when they wind up dead, he dutifully buries the bodies. Eventually, Carol (Carolyn Brandt) inherits the shack and right away, a local fat cat (Ron Haydock) wants to buy the place from her. She refuses, and he gets increasingly violent every time she shoots him down. Hmmm… Could HE be The Chooper?
If you ever saw an episode of Scooby-Doo, you probably already know the answer.
Like many of Ray Dennis Steckler’s previous films, his family members have big parts. This time out, his wife and daughters (who play the only game of Musical Chairs in cinematic history that only has one chair) comprise half the cast. The other Steckler mainstay, Rat Pfink himself, Haydock also co-wrote the script. Blood Shack is also similar to Steckler’s other works as an ominous dude with a red face appears to terrorize people, and the killer wears a black hoodie just like Cash Flagg did in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.
It's only fifty-five minutes long, but it feels like an eternity. If you thought Sinthia: The Devil’s Doll was dull, you haven’t seen anything yet. The long, drawn-out, pointless dialogue scenes go on forever. Combine that with Brandt’s weird, echo-y voiceovers, and some extremely gratuitous rodeo footage, and the results resemble a snuff movie version of an ASMR video.
Wayne’s final moments are good for an unintentional laugh, but that isn’t worth sitting through fifty-four minutes of insomnia-curing cinema just to see it.
Even with the short running time, this version is Steckler’s preferred cut. However, he struggled to find distribution with a movie that was so short, so he added fifteen more minutes to the movie to get it up to feature length. That version is called The Chooper, and it is also included on the Blu-ray. The funny thing is, even though Ray liked his original version better, The Chooper cut FEELS more like a Steckler movie because it has at least two of his trademarks that aren’t found in the Blood Shack version. First, is a great colorful title sequence done in the same art style as The Incredibly Strange Creatures (complete with close-ups of a bulging eyeball). There’s also a scene of Shameless Self-Promotion where Wayne shows off posters of The Thrill Killers and The Incredibly Strange Creatures to “Carol”, who we learn “starred” in those movies, which means she’s playing a thinly veiled version of herself. These additions don’t necessarily make The Chooper cut “better”, but they do make it feel more Steckler-y.
AKA: The Chooper. AKA: Curse of the Evil Spirit.
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