Diagonaldi
Very well executed
SmugKitZine
Tied for the best movie I have ever seen
Softwing
Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
FilmFatale
As you can probably guess from the review title, "The Butcher" is a mishmash of at least a dozen other better (or at least more entertaining) movies. Six young people are driving to Las Vegas when one decides to take a shortcut. They suffer a car accident when a strange girl runs in front of their SUV, killing one of their own (in pretty much the best kill of the movie). Pursuing the stranger leads to an encounter with the titular Butcher.There's really not one likable character in our main group, but you don't really root for the Butcher either - not one character has a defining moment to either put you off or win you over. The most horrifying part comes at the very end, where it seems like we're going to have to sit through the whole thing again before the credits mercifully roll. The gore is tame, the plot is tedious, and the whole thing is pretty soul-less. A sense of fun or love for the genre can go a long way, but we get none of that here.PS: I decided to do a review of this one while it was still relatively fresh in my mind because I'm 90% sure I've sat thru it at least once before but it's so unmemorable and derivative of so many recent "let's make a real old fashioned 80s slasher" movies that have come out in the past few years that I'm not totally sure. At least this way, there's proof of at least one viewing.
slayrrr666
"The Butcher" is a clichéd and stupid, though entertaining slasher.**SPOILERS**Driving to Las Vegas, friends Mark, (Alan Ritchson) Adam, (Tom Nagel) Sophie, (Myiea Coy) Atlanta, (Ashley Rebecca Hawkins) Liz, (Tiffany Christenson) and Rachel, (Catherine Wreford) to celebrate their upcoming graduation. Taking a detour, they become stuck in the wilderness and become stranded. Trying to get out, they happen upon a strange farmhouse out in the woods. Taking it upon themselves to investigate as no one seems to be home, but find no one as well. While they don't find anyone inside, what they do find is enough to spook them and force them to rethink their escape. When the owner shows up, who's a deranged serial killer, and begins to kill them off one-by-one, they try to use their instincts to survive. When it becomes even more apparent that there's more than one killer, they fight harder than before to escape.The Good News: This wasn't as bad as it could've been. This one manages one crucial trick that so many fail, which is to stay watchable when it suddenly veers off into familiarity. This type of scenario has played itself out pretty frequently, yet this one still keeps itself fun and enjoyable. The killer is introduced relatively early, and this means that most of the film is about thinning the cast off, and that leads to numerous scenes where the killer is stalking the group. When one character is trapped in the barn underneath the table where the killer is operating on a victim is particularly intense, and an earlier scene where one victim is trapped inside a car during an assault is it's finest moment. That it soon proceeds into a thrilling chase through the woods is a mere bonus. One other big suspense scene is the attack on the victims inside the walls of the house, as the pickax blasting holes to get at them comes close to nearly hitting them on several occasions and the flight to get out is pretty thrilling. The high body count is also a plus, as there's a tree brunch cutting a victim in half at the waist while they're trapped in a car, a pickax to the head, needles stabbed in the neck, a really gory shotgun blast to the stomach, a hanging on a barbed wire noose and a pitchfork through the stomach only for further killing to be done with a chainsaw, among others that aren't that particularly original. Still, that death is one of the finest in the film, as he repeatedly screams to not kill them even after they've already been impaled to a door. Still, they keep begging and the Butcher feels the need to go get a chainsaw to finish the job. A simply great kill and a solid favorite moment. Another choice moment comes when one lesbian refuses to leave behind her lover's severed torso and drags the upper half into the car to console it. That's the sort of committed relationship that isn't normally seen in a horror film and gives it a little extra that might not normally appear. With an ending twist that is quite thrilling and really sells the film, this one does have some good parts to it.The Bad News: This wasn't as bad as it could've been, but there were still problems. The biggest one is that the film is way to familiar. This type of film has been done numerous times before, and there are way too many spots where the viewer can spot where the scene was lifted from. There are two big ones that can spotted simply from the plot description, but there's at least four or five others that are cribbed pretty regularly. The last half is really one whole movie shoe-horned into the others, and it sticks out by following certain scenes really shot-for-shot. It's pretty distracting. Despite the sheer familiarity, there's rarely been a film that displays this much idiocy in one movie. Every stupid thing they could rally together, they do. They flash and taunt the serial killer. They drive around with people stuck out of sun-roofs. They get blind drunk immediately after the first person gets killed. Then, at the moment when they enter the barn, the biggest insult to our intelligence comes into play so far when one of them says that this kind of thing always happens inside the creepy farmhouse in horror movies. Not only does the movie know that it makes use of every threadbare cliché the genre has to offer, it also has the gigantic brass ones to tell us about them. There's no sense of it being an ironic comment on the situation, it is blindly stated for all to hear, and that is the big mistake. We know it's going to happen, but they don't and to make a comment like that simply shows what this is going to be. The killer is also physically revealed too early and could've benefited from a later reveal, but these are the main problems.The Final Verdict: While it may seem to be simply a knock-off other, more well-known films, this was still a pretty fun time that does manage to entertain. Though that rip-off feel might be enough for most to dismiss this, those that do decide will find much to like. It's simply a matter of whether or not a film being incredibly familiar is enough to warrant a viewing.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity
carlossanchez1999
as a big slasher film fan i have to say this one, fulfill it's complement: be a horror movie. But there's just something about and it's the fact that: it's just wrong. When i was watching it at one point i though i was watching, wrong turn, then i star thinking about the Texas chainsaw massacre, then hills have eyes and finally i know what you did last summer, the movie it's basically a mix of all these other movies but unsuccessfully did what those other movies did, it's just so predictable, the scrip it's so weak and far beyond scary, instead of that it's so lame, with this thousands of clichés like "don't go in there" "what it's this place" "he's gonna kill us all" you basically know who's gonna die first and why called it "the butcher" there is no butcher in the film and there is not even a good slaughter, they should have call it "i know what the Texas hills wrong turned last summer" or something, honestly i don't know what a company spend money into making this crappy films. I give it a three because, well it's a horror movie after all, invite some friends over and watch it with pop corns in a boring Saturday afternoon. And for the record i should give this movie a zero but the lesbians really help it.
sap-4
If you saw the new version of Texas Chainsaw Masacre, Wrong Turn, People Under the Stairs, and a few others, you've already seen this movie. It steals scenes and almost line by line from these others. It is so predictable, I knew what characters were going to do or say down to their exact words a minute before they did just that. There's a chainsaw, there's even an engagement ring, bottled body parts, barbed-wire , and even the ending is a copied. Also, the acting, especially from the mother, is terrible. Absolutely nothing is particularly original. Do not waste your time. It stinks. And as a horror movie, there's not even too much horror. Also it is mis-titled. Was obviously supposed to be called "The Farmer" or something like that judging from what probably was intended as a signature line "It's Harvest Time!". There's no mention of anything connected to a butcher. P.S. Venom is a MUCH better movie.
