As of late, the horror genre seems to be overwhelmed with remakes and found footage films. Whenever an original concept is brought to light, genre fans cling to it not necessarily because of its high quality, but simply because it's different. A short film was recently brought to my attention with an incredibly unique premise, but unfortunately fails to deliver a quality final product. Brought to us by BDHR Entertainment (run by the man behind Big Daddy Horror Reviews, Brandon Sites) FAT KID MASSACRE is (according to the crew) "a touching coming of age story that revolves around a former fat kid who got muscular and good looking, but who struggles with identity issues as his former friends - THE FAT KIDS - bully him on a constant basis. As a cruel prank is set into motion, a killer arrives on the scene to make sure these fat kids pay for their glutony and unhealthy lifestyle, including death by Twinkie suffociation!" I copied this description off of their official indiegogo fanpage, spelling errors included. Based solely off of the short film version that has been circulating the internet, I think that the writers behind this film are giving themselves a little too much credit. This film was a borderline abomination, an insult to horror filmmaking, and stole nine minutes and twenty seconds of my life that I will never get back.
First of all, the acting by the three "fat kids" are absolutely treacherous. Writer/Producer Brandon Sites cast himself as one of the fat kids and he looked like he was smiling with pride after delivering every single line. His acting style reminded me of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, in that every time he said a line that "sounded black" he'd smile at what he presumed to be his own brilliance. The only difference, is that Brandon Sites has absolutely no concept of vocal rhythm and delivers lines reminiscent of the old women preaching "all senior citizens should have life alert" followed by an unnatural smile. The first three seconds of the damn short show the fat kids stuffing their faces and you can see Brandon Sites trying not to smile while shoving food in his mouth. I have nothing against writers/producers/directors acting in their films, but usually...they can actually fucking act. To make matters worse, Brandon and the other "fat kids" are supposedly the old friends of former fat kid "Ian-The Skinny Bitch". Ian looks easily twenty years younger than all of them, which forces the believability of their friendship completely out the window. It's unfortunate, because Ryan Sandefur, the actor playing Ian, actually plays a "bitch" quite well. The only problem is that he's a halfway decent actor surrounded by a gaggle of guys who wouldn't have even been cast as Tree #4 in a community theatre production.
The final seven minutes of the short film is nothing more than one of the fat kids tied to a chair by a masked man who "taunts him" with weapons until finally forcefeeding him Twinkies until he dies. For seven minutes we're given nothing but a poorly lit room with a dull build up to an unsatisfying pay off. All the while, forced to listen to the annoying and unconvincing whines of a fat kid tied up to a chair. I can't even give them credit for having an unique kill, because we've seen the "feed the fatty to death" kill before in plenty of other films. (I'm looking at you, Se7en). The dialogue is mind-numbingly poor and clearly forgot any sort of common sense in the process. When the fat kids are bullying the skinny bitch, one of the men states "You went behind our backs and lost all the weight". Okay, this kid is not only about 200 pounds lighter than the lot of fat kids, but he's also built like a god damn GI Joe. Lost weight behind your backs? YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED THE WEIGHT LOSS. So unless their friend went on a three year hiatus or a stint on The Biggest Loser, the audience's suspension of disbelief just isn't strong enough to believe that. Continuity problems aside, THE DIALOGUE HAS IMPROPER SYNTAX. "You're just a scared, little, pathetic, kid from Georgia who amount to nothing." I believe the word you were looking for was "amounted" not "amount". Then again, maybe the line delivered was supposed to be "amounted" and in that case, Brandon as an actor really, really needs to work on his enunciation. I hate to say it, but he is the largest reason why this short is so terrible. His acting is distracting, and his writing brings it down. The camera work is rather good and the editing is very clean. The biggest problem, is Brandon Sites.
The actual storyline is absolutely ridiculous and if this is supposed to make me want to donate my hard earned cash to fund the feature version of this film, I'd rather donate my money to Chik-Fil-A before I'd donate to this garbage. I'm not here to rip on someone's hard work, but this film is part of a trend that desperately needs to end. I'm talking about the kickstarter/indie gogo projects undeserving of our attention. The writer/producer has been putting on social networking sites that he sees this film as a "future cult classic". In the words of the incomparable Kristin Wiig, are you fucking serious? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but are you fucking serious? The fact that people are actually donating to this piece of trite garbage makes me want to swallow drain cleaner. The crew has shown promises of having Scream Queens Season 2's Sierra Holmes in the feature version and I want to just shake her and ask her what in the actual hell she is doing being associated with something this unwatchable. There are so many wonderful, terrific, well-deserving films that must resort to indiegogo or kickstarter to help aide them in getting their films made, and then there's shit like Fat Kid Massacre that's only positive use would be using the disc as a coaster. I'm all about supporting indie films, I am one of the largest supporters of indie films, but just because you're low budget...doesn't mean I have to support you. Money can't buy a good storyline, and it can't prevent one either.
To Sierra Holmes, Ryan Sandefur, Kaylee Williams, Alisa Lova, Aley Kreinz, and Shawn C. Phillips, I don't care how desperate for work you are, this is something that should be scrubbed from your resumes, immediately. Normally I'd post a link for the indiegogo, but honestly, this film doesn't deserve your money. If you really want to seek it out, you can do it for yourself.
The final seven minutes of the short film is nothing more than one of the fat kids tied to a chair by a masked man who "taunts him" with weapons until finally forcefeeding him Twinkies until he dies. For seven minutes we're given nothing but a poorly lit room with a dull build up to an unsatisfying pay off. All the while, forced to listen to the annoying and unconvincing whines of a fat kid tied up to a chair. I can't even give them credit for having an unique kill, because we've seen the "feed the fatty to death" kill before in plenty of other films. (I'm looking at you, Se7en). The dialogue is mind-numbingly poor and clearly forgot any sort of common sense in the process. When the fat kids are bullying the skinny bitch, one of the men states "You went behind our backs and lost all the weight". Okay, this kid is not only about 200 pounds lighter than the lot of fat kids, but he's also built like a god damn GI Joe. Lost weight behind your backs? YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED THE WEIGHT LOSS. So unless their friend went on a three year hiatus or a stint on The Biggest Loser, the audience's suspension of disbelief just isn't strong enough to believe that. Continuity problems aside, THE DIALOGUE HAS IMPROPER SYNTAX. "You're just a scared, little, pathetic, kid from Georgia who amount to nothing." I believe the word you were looking for was "amounted" not "amount". Then again, maybe the line delivered was supposed to be "amounted" and in that case, Brandon as an actor really, really needs to work on his enunciation. I hate to say it, but he is the largest reason why this short is so terrible. His acting is distracting, and his writing brings it down. The camera work is rather good and the editing is very clean. The biggest problem, is Brandon Sites.
The actual storyline is absolutely ridiculous and if this is supposed to make me want to donate my hard earned cash to fund the feature version of this film, I'd rather donate my money to Chik-Fil-A before I'd donate to this garbage. I'm not here to rip on someone's hard work, but this film is part of a trend that desperately needs to end. I'm talking about the kickstarter/indie gogo projects undeserving of our attention. The writer/producer has been putting on social networking sites that he sees this film as a "future cult classic". In the words of the incomparable Kristin Wiig, are you fucking serious? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but are you fucking serious? The fact that people are actually donating to this piece of trite garbage makes me want to swallow drain cleaner. The crew has shown promises of having Scream Queens Season 2's Sierra Holmes in the feature version and I want to just shake her and ask her what in the actual hell she is doing being associated with something this unwatchable. There are so many wonderful, terrific, well-deserving films that must resort to indiegogo or kickstarter to help aide them in getting their films made, and then there's shit like Fat Kid Massacre that's only positive use would be using the disc as a coaster. I'm all about supporting indie films, I am one of the largest supporters of indie films, but just because you're low budget...doesn't mean I have to support you. Money can't buy a good storyline, and it can't prevent one either.
To Sierra Holmes, Ryan Sandefur, Kaylee Williams, Alisa Lova, Aley Kreinz, and Shawn C. Phillips, I don't care how desperate for work you are, this is something that should be scrubbed from your resumes, immediately. Normally I'd post a link for the indiegogo, but honestly, this film doesn't deserve your money. If you really want to seek it out, you can do it for yourself.
0 comments:
Post a Comment