Slaughter Party (2005)

Directed by:
Buck Jones Jr.

Three schmucks wanting to check out a desert cave run into a delirious, nameless mad doctor (Ford Austin) instead. The doctor slaughters two of them, rips out and eats their guts, drinks their blood and then ties down and anally rapes the third guy - a dwarf named Craig (Mighty Mike Murga) - to give him "the gift that keeps on giving." I guess that gift is some kind of virus that causes insanity because Craig then begins sneaking into young women's apartments and murdering them. The sister of one of his victims, Tara (Felissa Rose), is trying to get over both the death of her sister and breakup of her relationship, so her friend Kerri (Sarah Rosenberg) drags her along on a camping trip. They meet up with six or seven other girls, immediately strip down to their bathing suits, go swimming, start partying and are attacked and killed by both the doctor and Craig (who hitches a ride there with a would-be victim). A couple of detective (including porno actor Adam Glasser aka Seymore Butts) are on the case.

According to the trivia section, this Troma release was shot on video for just 1000 dollars. It looks it. Nearly every scene was filmed in the daytime and most of it outdoors so the filmmakers don't have to worry much about things such as art direction and lighting. It's also very, very stupid in that amateurish we-know-this -is-awful-and-stupid -so-we-aren't-even- really-going-to-try kind of way. The only person who seems to be taking any of this seriously is lead actress Rose, who amusingly goes all out and tries to be as dramatic (and credible) as possible under the circumstance. Dead bodies move. Lines are flubbed. People mug for the camera. Lot of fake blood is flung around. Two girls go topless (and there's a mild lesbian scene that goes nowhere). Total screen time for guest stars Lloyd Kaufman (who seems to appear in every no budget horror made these days), Brinke Stevens and Ron Jeremy amounts to probably about five minutes. The camera-work and editing are frequently awful.

Every once in awhile something funny does actually happen, but it's hard not to laugh just a little watching a rabid dwarf clutching a knife chasing around bikini-clad girls who have a bad habit of always tripping and falling down. As the killer doctor, Austin is probably the best thing this film has going for it. The credited director is "Buck Jones Jr." not Fred Rosenberg as it currently says on IMDb. I think Jones / Rosenberg may be an alias for Chris Watson, who's responsible for another terrible Troma release called ZOMBIEGEDDON (2003).

★1/2