TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE SCISSORS MASSACRE (2008) ****

A young schoolgirl named Mayumi (Rin Asuka) seemingly has everything going for her.  She’s in love with the captain of the track team, and now that her older sister has been married off, she’s taken over the best bedroom in the house.  Life is good.  Tragically, her family is subject to a horrific attack that leaves Mayumi’s mother dead and her face horribly disfigured.  Once life begins returning to some semblance of normal, a killer in a red coat starts to kill off her classmates with a pair of extremely sharp scissors. 

For the first half hour or so of this movie you’re gonna think this is just a sweet coming of age story.  You’ll be wondering how can such a sweet and innocent drama be called The Scissors Massacre?  Once it turns on a dime, shit gets real in a hurry.  Folks, trust me when I tell you, this flick features some of the ghastliest bloodletting I’ve seen in a while. 

Surprisingly enough, the dramatic scenes are exceptionally strong for a movie with the words “Scissors” and “Massacre” in the title.  We really get to spend time with Mayumi and her family before everything goes to hell.  Even then, we get to see their interactions and how they come together in the wake of tragedy.  Just when it seems like the wounds are healing, problems arise to threaten to tear them apart yet again.  The film is full of some genuinely heartbreaking moments and well-crafted drama.  In fact, some of the dramatic scenes are more painful to watch than the horror stuff. 

This is actually a sequel to a flick called A Slit-Mouthed Woman.  I’m not sure if it’s directly related or if it’s just a tale about another Slit-Mouthed Woman (which is a popular Japan folktale).  Either way, this is one unsettling, effective, and unforgettable horror movie. 

AKA:  A Slit-Mouthed Woman 2.  AKA:  Carved 2.  

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: REUNION MASSACRE (2014) * ½

Breana Mitchell stars as a woman who recently broke up with her boyfriend (Jarad Allen).  She receives an ominous warning from an automated Zoltar fortune teller at a carnival but thinks nothing of it.  When she gets home, she finds an invitation to her high school reunion waiting for her in the mail.  On her way to the reunion, her car runs out of gas, and she is captured and tormented by a killer in a clown mask. 

Reunion Massacre is only an hour long, so writer/director Dustin Ferguson added bumpers starring a horror hostess named “Grindhouse Ghoulia” (Kerrie Waybright Smith) to beef up the running time.  It’s kind of funny when she goes to say the title of the film, someone else says “Reunion Massacre” over top of her dialogue, which makes it obvious that this was repackaged and/or re-released for Tubi.   (Apparently, the original title was Invitation to Die.)

While Ferguson has the bare bones for a solid horror flick here, it’s mostly undone by all the padding.  He gives us long scenes of Mitchell cooking and eating spaghetti, a montage of her and a gal pal putting up Halloween decorations, pointless driving scenes, black and white domestic abuse flashbacks, negative image dream scenes, needless shots of Mitchell hanging around a botanical garden, and a lot of time is spent on her carving a pumpkin.  There’s even a scene where she lies on the couch and watches Casablanca.  Note to prospective filmmakers:  Never show a scene of someone watching Casablanca in your crappy movie because it will just make the audience wish they were watching Casablanca instead. 

Oh, and can you even call this Reunion Massacre if she never even makes it to the reunion?  Shouldn’t it be called On the Way to the Reunion Massacre?  Still, as bad as most of this is, it’s far from the worst Dustin Ferguson movie I’ve seen. 

AKA:  Invitation to Die.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: REDWOOD MASSACRE: ANNIHILATION (2020) ** ½

We pick up ten years after the events of The Redwood Massacre.  Tom (Jon Campling), the father of one of the Redwood Killer’s victims, has written a book about the Redwood Massacre.  While on a book tour, an obsessed fan named Max (Damien Puckler) claims he’s discovered new evidence of the Killer’s whereabouts, prompting the author and his daughter Laura (Danielle Harris) to join in a search of the area.  Little does the family realize, the fanboy is also a serial killer himself and may be leading them into a trap. 

It seems that returning writer/director David Ryan Keith went into this sequel with the intention of playing with the audience’s expectations.  Everywhere the first film zigged, this one zags.  Instead of having an English cast this time out, they managed to get nothing but American actors (including Halloween franchise fan favorite Harris).  Instead of taking place in the woods, it’s set in an underground military base/mad scientist lab where the hulking killer was born and bred.  Speaking of the killer, he’s given a lot less screen time in this one, which means the body count is lower and the gore isn’t as over the top.  (We still get plenty of stabbing, hacking, gut ripping, and head lopping though.)

Like a lot of sequels, Keith’s under the impression that bigger is better.  The budget is obviously larger, we have not one, but two killers, and the running time is expanded to a cumbersome one-hundred-and-three minutes.  The killer is also given an unnecessary backstory, which I guess can be said for many horror sequels.  I’m not saying that it doesn’t work.  It’s just that it doesn’t work quite as well as the first time around, and there are a lot more lulls in between the highlights. 

Harris is likable as ever.  She gives a feisty performance and is credible in her ass-kicking scenes.  She also gets a memorable moment where she gun-punches someone.  Puckler is pretty good too as the fledgling serial killer as he looks like a slightly more intense version of Casper Van Dien.  Their efforts don’t quite push this one into the win column, but they do help keep it afloat throughout the overly bloated running time. 

AKA:  Redwood Massacre 2:  Annihilation.  

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE REDWOOD MASSACRE (2014) ***

A group of friends go camping in the woods.  Of course, the main reason they’re going there is because it just so happens to be a famous murder site… because… you know, fun times, right?  Predictably, the mythical killer is still lumbering around the forest, and he’s just hankering to hack even more campers to pieces. 

The Redwood Massacre is another one of those movies where annoying British people get on your nerves, stumble around the woods, argue with one another, and then (finally) get killed.  Despite my initial restlessness and general distain for British slasher movies, once the killer got around to slaughtering campers wholesale, I had to admit it was pretty effective. 

The killer is pretty cool too.  He kind of looks like what would happen if Scarecrow escaped from Arkham Asylum and went on to become the drummer for Slipknot.  The kills are surprisingly juicy too.  The axe murder/cannibalism flashback sets the bar pretty high early on.  From there, the various axing and stabbings leave just about everything coated in crimson.  Heck, even when the killer’s just punching dudes in the face, the blood flies every which way.  I tell ya, true to the title, this guy sure knows how to turn the woods red. 

Some of the kills have a torture porn vibe to them as many of the victims are either tied up or helpless while the killer is twisting his blade into them.  That may or may not turn some viewers off.  I will say that the copious amount of red stuff will surely please the gorehounds out there.  The bad news is the finale is a little protracted as we get too many new characters popping up late in the game.  If the filmmakers decided to pack everything in about ten minutes earlier, it might’ve skated by with *** ½.  That quibble aside, The Redwood Massacre is a gory good time. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: RAVE PARTY MASSACRE (2017) *

I never really got the whole rave thing.  People take a lot of drugs and listen to lots of terrible music.  So, it’s basically Disco without the mirror balls.  And the music and fashions are way worse.  And you’re dancing in a condemned building instead of Studio 54.  Doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time. 

A feuding couple goes to a rave.  Two minutes into the dance, she’s high as a kite and banging some other dude.  Not exactly marriage material, if you ask me.  Anyway, a few minutes later, she and a couple other ravers (including her understandably upset boyfriend) who all had partaken in an illicit party drug, wake up in an abandoned hospital where an axe murderer in a dog mask hunts them down and chops them up one by one. 

So, if you’re playing along at home, what we have here isn’t really a “Rave Party Massacre” as the “Massacre” occurs at a hospital.  It technically should be called Hospital Massacre, but I guess since there’s already a movie called Hospital Massacre, the filmmakers wanted to avoid confusion.  I suppose they could’ve called it Abandoned Hospital Massacre.  Or maybe Post-Rave Party Massacre, but now we’re just splitting hairs.  I guess when you start focusing on what the movie SHOULD be called, and not on the movie itself, it’s safe to say, it sucks. 

Oh, and the movie is set in 1992, for some reason.  There’s a lot of footage of George Bush and Bill Clinton on the tube, and there’s mention of Ruby Ridge too.  All of this is supposed to give the killer a murky motive for the killing, but about the third time you hear Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light” speech, you start to wonder if you haven’t accidentally switched channels to C-SPAN Retro.  Maybe in order to enjoy all this you have to be hopped up on X and waving Glo-Sticks around like a madman.

Well, that wasn’t exactly a “rave” review now, was it? 

AKA:  DeadThirsty.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE PUPPET MONSTER MASSACRE (2010) **

The Puppet Monster Massacre is a little bit like Meet the Feebles as the cast is nothing more than hand puppets who speak in a variety of four-letter words.  Most of this is crude, both in terms of the lowbrow humor and the ramshackle design of the puppets.  It might be good for a snicker or two, but ultimately, it’s a bit of a chore to get through.

A mad doctor (voiced by Steve Rimpici, the voice of Duke the Unicorn in the CarousHELL movies) with the aid of his penguin assistant incubates a monster inside an unsuspecting victim.  Meanwhile, a guy receives a letter telling him he can win a million bucks if he can spend one night inside the doctor’s haunted mansion.  At the mansion, he’s met by other contestants, including the girl he’s had a crush on for years.  Little do the contestants know, the doctor is scheming to get revenge on them by unleashing his ever-growing monster. 

This was probably better off as a short.  Scenes run on way too long without much of a comic payoff.  Unless, that is, you count lots of unfunny fart jokes as a “comedic payoff”.  It also doesn’t help that many of the jokes run on way past their expiration date.  (Like the unending geyser of blood.)  The monster itself is pretty neat looking, but it doesn’t have much of a presence and lacks personality.  There’s also an odd, animated WWII flashback that’s kind of lame and seems like it’s only there to bulk up the running time. 

In addition to Meet the Feebles, The Puppet Monster Massacre seems to take inspiration from Let My Puppets Come during the scenes of puppet sex.  Unfortunately, the instances of puppet nudity and gore aren’t particularly engaging enough to make it all worthwhile.  Even with the puppet nudity, bloodshed, and foul language, it all still somehow manages to feel lightweight and tame.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: POOL PARTY MASSACRE (2017) ***

A group of catty, entitled, spoiled brats (who admittedly, look great in bikinis) gather at the home of Queen Bee Blair (Kristin Noel McKusick) for a pool party.  Little do they know a lumbering killer is lurking about the premises with an arsenal of garden tools at his disposal.  Before long, he’s making mincemeat out of the stuck-up sorority sisters.  Who will survive?  Probably Blair’s bestie, Nancy (Margaux Neme), seeing as she’s the only one at the party who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. 

From the awesome 8-bit style opening credits sequence, you can tell Pool Party Massacre is going to be a lot of fun.  Writer/director/star Drew Marvick delivers a solid amount of T & A (not to mention some S & M) and blood and guts.  There’s throat slashing, a screwdriver to the eye, a hammer to the jaw, a pickaxe to the brain, an axe to the neck, an electric hedge clipper to the stomach, a power drill to the back, an axe to the head, and a machete to the chest.  He also gives us what is possibly the screen’s first Psycho shower scene homage involving a weed whacker.  That is to say Marvick is a talent to watch.  (Porn star Alexis Adams is especially memorable in her nude/death scenes too.) 

I have to hand it to Marvick, a lot of the girls’ bitchy dialogue is pretty funny, and they make a lot of pop culture references along the way too.  The film is also laced with enough random bits of goofiness to make it memorable (like the crazy old biddy whose creepy tea party is ruined by the heavy metal music blaring from poolside).  The twist ending is also extremely clever.

It's Neme, the Final Girl, who gets the best line of the movie during the climax after she hears the killer’s motive and asks, “You did all this to be famous?  Why can’t you make a sex tape like everyone else?”