Friday The 12th: Triple Feature — Friday the 12th(DVD)
New York state-based Chris Seaver is a micro-budget comedy-horror creator- who since the late ’90s has carved out his own distinctive often video-captured path. It’s fair to say his work is very much a love or late affair, with little middle ground- his films featuring hammily acted and overbearing characters, cult film and music references, fart jokes and sexualized humour, and OTT cheapy effects. Friday The 12th: Triple Feature brings together three films from Mr Seaver- two slashes- Terror at Blood Fart Lake, and its sequel Return To Blood Fart Lake, and a sort of Evil Dead parody with red necks 'n' jigging breasts The Evil Dead Inbred Rednecks.
Mr Seaver's directors’ filmography takes in an impressive seventy-four credits-with forty-five feature lengths, as well as a host of shorts. Feature-length wise his output goes from Anal Paprika 2: Vampire Killers (2000), Quest for the Egg Salad (2002), Ghoulish Chronicles from Bonejack High (2005), I Spit Chew on Your Grave (2008), Moist Fury (2011), Phantom of the Grindhouse (2013).
So first up on the disc we have 2009’s Terror At Blood Fart Lake- which Seaver directed, and co-wrote. The film runs at the one-hour and fourteen-minute mark- and what we have here is often silly, though at points spatter bound send-up of the 80s slasher film. It finds as its title suggests a group of teens heading out to the lake for good times- and they get tangled up back-from-the-dead slasher legend Jimmy Van Burt- a geeky & dumb kid who got burnt alive in a cornfield, while wearing a cheapy scarecrow costume.
Character-wise we have one mulleted and dumb rocker, a constantly giving it the finger metaller, a plump and horny goth, 40’s movie star gone 80’s arthouse actress, and a more subdued horror T-shirt maker. Along the way they meet a big floppy moustached, mulleted, and baseball cap-wearing redneck, a tubby 'n' campy thespian, and a gun-tooting/ kung fu fighting tough girl.
The more gore-bound side of things doesn’t really kick in until the mid-way point, and when it does, we get fingers chopped off, a corn cob in the eye, fat sucked out then fed back in, corn cob through the arse etc. The main flow of the film is most definitely the silly humour/ film music reference side of things- and while I never all-out cracked up, I had more than a few chuckles along the way.
Most of the characters stay(just) on the right side of amusing/ entertaining- the only one that really grated me was the 40’s actress come arthouse actress- she had such an annoying overdone voice and kept popping up with unfunny lines. Musically we get a good enough blend of ska, pop-punk, and wavering horror scoring. In conclusion, as a long-time slasher fan/ageing metal head I mostly enjoyed what was offered up here- but I can definitely say this won’t be for everyone.
Next up we have 2012’s Return to Blood Fart Lake- this runs one hour and eleven minutes. It takes place a few years after the first Blood Fart film when a few survivors return into the killers’ area again. They are joined by a selection of new characters who once again encounter Jimmy Van Burt, the corn cob-using killing machine. This film's focuses is on the wackier characters/ comedy side of things- with the killer only really appearing in the last twenty minutes of the film. I won’t detail the returning characters, so as not to spoil the resolve of the first film. But new characters wise we get an ex-big breasted porn star leading a bunch of folks to track down the legend of Mr Van Burt- her group take in a nervy and neurotic red-haired woman, a US laid back punk rocker who looks very Ramones-like, and a horny/ moustached cameraman. Also, we meet the killer’s sister, who’s a yellow-gloved, mouth-twisting, and gabbling madwoman. There's a large African American man with an eye patch, and a few other characters. The humour is a lot more sexualized here, and when we do get killings, they are somewhat fleeting- though we do get two corn cobs in the head ‘n’ twist kill, and a corn through the cock while jerking off. On the whole, I did enjoy what we had here, and found myself chuckling more than the first film- with the whole thing often feeling like a more wacky/ perverse take on UK TV series The League of Gentleman. The only let-down was the end which felt rushed and did really revolve in a fully satisfactory manner.
Lastly, we 2012’s The Evil Dead Inbred Rednecks- and this is halfway between a feature-length and a short as it comes in at the forty-six-minute mark. As its title suggests the parody here is the Evil Dead, with touches of a slasher- through there is no real gore here. The film feels almost like a follow-on from Return to Blood Fart Lake- as we get returning characters, with a character or two from the original film too.
Initially, the plot very closely follows that of the first Evil Dead film, as we get a bunch of teens- including a young Bruce Campbell look alike, with a dodgy wig (there are more than a few wonky hair pieces here). After male breast caress/ sucking, and silly sex humour shenanigans- the group come across a cused book- but instead of bringing the evil dead it switches the teens into load mouth ‘n’ dumb rednecks. We get a trip into the woods where we meet a rolling-eyed topless woman with bouncing breast/ quirky dialogue, she is joined by a hamming-it/ demented male wizard. This film focuses wholly on the wacky characters and sexualized humour- with not really much horror bound here. Also, the whole thing feels fairly loosely hung together, with little or no plot after the finding of the cursed book. There are a few amusing/ worthy moments here, but on the whole, I found The Evil Dead Inbred Rednecks rather a chore to get through.
The region free disc features of course the films, all of which are competently enough shot examples of modern very low-budget productions. But we also get trailers for all three films too- so no extras really, but when you’ve got three (well two- and a-bit films) on one disc you can’t really expect anything extra.
With Friday The 12th: Triple Feature you certainly get a lot of Seaver for your buck - so kudos to SRS for cramming three-plus hours of content on this DVD. As I’ve mentioned, more than a few times, Seaver work is a very acquired taste-so I’d say check out a few trailers first, and if those do click with you- then you’ll find much in here to sink your teeth into