Return To Splatter Farm — Return To Splatter Farm(DVD)
Return To Splatter Farm is a sequel to gore-bound and bad taste lined SOV 80’s classic Splatter Farm. The film drops its original SOV look, for an enjoyable enough romp of a film- that blends gore, subtle humour, and moments of effective eerier-ness. Here from the guys over at Wildeye Releasing is a region free DVD of the film, which features director’s commentary, and a short making-of.
The original Splatter Farm is a stone cold-yet wonky SOV classic- the 1987 picture was the first (officially released) film directed by Pennsylvania horror-loving twins Mark and John Polonia. It featured the late teen Polonia brothers in the lead roles as twins Joseph and Alan- who go to visit their creepily sleazy & ageing Aunt Lacey on her isolated farm. Fairly soon we meet Jeremy (Todd Smith) an unbalanced young handyman who is helping out their aunt, and also he's a deranged and unhinged killer. The film blended campy and lightly amusing acting, with moments of gruelling at points extreme transgressive gore ‘n’ torture- with the whole thing topped off with an air of woozy eeriness and uneasy.
Return To Splatter Farm follows twenty-something Bobbi (Danielle Donahue), and her group of friends going back to the farm 33 years after the torture and slaughter happened. She has inherited the farm, which has seemingly remained untouched- though it seems Jeremy is still stalking the barns, outbuildings, and fields of the farm looking for new human prey.
The film was co-directed by Mark Polonia and Jeff Kirkendall- Mark has an impressive sixty-plus directorial credit to his name, and Jeff Kirkendall is an independent digital filmmaker & actor from Upstate New York, with fifty acting credits and ten director credits to his name. As mentioned in my introduction Return To Splatter Farm drops the gritty and grainy SOV look, for a low-budget though more formal example of genre film making. We also have a larger cast (the first film had a cast of five). Tone wish we find a blend of subtle cheeky humour, slasher film tropes, with moments of gore, a fairly bit a well-portioned female flesh, and some effective moments of shadowy rural creepiness.
The cast are largely passable, with Bobbi’s group of buddies been fairly memorable- we have an ageing and bearded metal stoner, a larger and bouncy woman, and her no-nonsense African American boyfriend. Playing the role of Jeremy, we have Jeff Kirkendall- who really has managed to mimic and add onto Smith’s take on the character. On the gore/ effects side of things we get a load of decapitations, limp loping’s, throat slashings, axe/ sigh attacks, folk been roasted and electrified- these are well enough done. Though there is little of the more transgressive side of things, which is slightly disappointing- but understandable, I guess. There are some nice and effective moments of atmosphere here with the shadowy and bulky Kirkendall stalking around the farm. Overall, what we have here is an enjoyable low-budget slasher romp, with enough blood, boobs, and gore to keep genre fans happy.
Extras wise on the disc we get a commentary track from Mark Polonia and Jeff Kirkendall . If you listened to other Mark Polonia commentary tracks, he always does an entertaining track. The pair talk about shot set-ups, where props came from, filming locations and cast. They talk about the script( which Kirkendal wrote) and its influence beyond the original film-early 80’s slasher films. They discuss the nods towards Todd Smith’s portrayal of the Jeremy character, and more- all told a most rewarding track. And lastly, we get a few minutes of the making of.
It’s always a difficult proposition when it comes to sequels of horror classics- will they manage to recreate the mood/ vibe of the first film? go off in another direction?, or offer up a limp retake on the original?. For the most part, is Return To Splatter Farm an enjoyable and worthy sequel- sure it does lack the wonky and woozy charm of the original and the transgressive elements, but it’s a good and campy slasher, with gore, female flesh, and some effectively creepy atmospherics.