Splatter Farm (1987)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Fantastic!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Author's Note: I sat through this miserable excuse of a movie 3 or 4 years ago and I recently saw it again (it's just as bad as I remembered) for the sole purpose of giving it the review it so justly deserves. Oh and I didn't pay/waste money on this rubbish either time.Boy, no one else can bring charm, charisma and ability to the screen quite like the Polonia brothers do (groan) in their impossibly low-budget "cult classic" horror film, Splatter Farm. Reportedly made for (and I'm not joking) $100 and was shot directly to video-tape (VHS), by what had to be some pretty primitive A/V gear. Just keep those two facts in mind a "hundred dollar budget and filmed on VHS cassette tapes" and IF you can believe it, there's actually a "producer" listed in the credits of this "hundred dollar movie". Moving on, I find Splatter Farm to be somewhat similar in plot to the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (a true cult classic) except without any of the talent or excitement and to say that their trifling efforts (that being Splatter Farm, of course) fall short of achieving any kind of "movie magic" is an understatement to the extreme.Why is this? The reasons are many.If I haven't already told you all you need to know and hopefully steered you clear of Splatter Farm, the list gets even longer from here - so let us continue. When the Polonia twins and their thin, scraggly, teen-mustaches made this wretchedly terrible movie in 1987, they where still teen-ager's and had basically no money and little, if any, experience in their craft (this is their first movie) and it certainly shows. When watching Splatter Farm it should take you less than a minute to realize just how cheap and amateurish this sad, sad movie is. Because it's an inescapable fact that every single one of it's odious, low-resolution frames, simply reeks of low-budget amateurism. From it's flawed amateurish acting to it's pitifully weak plot, involving two guys on vacation, that neither of them really wanted to take (to the home of some old, dumpy and unsavory woman who lives out in the boondocks, with her "handyman" Jeremy). To say that the majority of this film is "uninvolving" is putting it lightly and that's precisely why it's such a bore, candy-striping it with heavy amounts of degenerate Ed Gein-like visuals and sub-amateur gore effects illicit little in terms of Interest-Intrigue-or-Stimulation (many other movies have already used visuals like this and much better). Earlier I mentioned Jeremy the handyman, what's his story. Jeremy's the bad egg of the bunch, a despondent, maladjusted miscreant, with a habit of murdering both farm animals and people, he's also inbreed (thats where the "unsavory" part comes into play with regard to the old lady) and he quite simply has a head full of bad-wiring, which the Polonia twin's, our star actors/directors soon find out - fatally.Quite simply this movie is Boring-Boring-Boring and it's only entertainment value revolves around it's dire level's ineptitude, such as the HORRENDOUS acting, it's cheap, blatantly fake-looking gore effects and the films non-existent production values. Let us briefly delve into those production values of this godly "cult classic". Now I covered the fact that it was filmed directly to video-tape, but just WHAT was it that amateur crew of "Polonia, Polonia and Smith" captured on their low-resolution video-tapes? Well, sadly, the core visuals primarily involve shots of a crappy, old, weather-beaten barn, the interior and exterior of a modest and unremarkable rural home, a couple of cars, an empty field, a spattering of forest shots, a few gravel roads and again, some of the worst gore effects ever seen in the "splatter film" genre (in some scenes the gushing streams of blood are -obviously- nothing more than someone just off-camera squirting fake blood from a plastic squeeze bottle). If the Polonia bros and their partner in crime, the ever distinguished, Mr. Todd Smith, were trying to put something scary together here, they failed. A much more capable film crew (Tobe Hooper or Wes Craven for instance), covering the very same material, could have made this a very entertaining slice of sadistic-backwoods-inbreed-hillbilly-axe-wielding-murder-and-mayhem. But that's NOT what we get here.If you haven't already guessed, the cast for this movie is extremely small, only 4 people, 5 counting a murder victim out in the woods (the scene lasts for about a minute). None of them have much in the way of "acting chops" - most especially the old woman. Just listen to the diction of Mark and John Polonia (constantly squinting and drawing-out their words), which is at it's worst when their annoyed with a situation - which is pretty much the entire movie. I will say the old woman has a relatively amusing demise, but once again, lame gore effects certainly still apply.Lastly, just look at the Polonia twins, talk about two guys who have NO business being in front of the camera. Constantly squinting these two scraggly, fur-lipped, mop-topped, wiry-framed, bespectacled, 90-pound weaklings, score only slightly more charismatic then the corpse's featured in their movie.Generally speaking just about all movies, no matter how bad they are, are eventually televised, however, I'd be willing to bet Splatter Farm has never been "aired" or ever will be. But hey, at least it's not as bad as A Night To Dismember.

First off, if you don't LOVE low-budget cinema, then don't even think about it. Even if you do, be cautious. Recently, I came across quite the homemade disasterpiece that you very well may not be ready for. If you're not at all familiar with the s.o.v. revolution of the 80's (Cannibal Campout, Blood Lake), then chances are high you won't know what the hell to think of this one. Actually, I have an entire collection of terrible Horror movies, which were shot on video, and I still have no idea what to think. This completely uncalled for home video was created by the Polonia brothers. A couple of scrawny, odd-looking twins, with sad little mustaches, who either really love Horror, or really, really hate it. What makes Splatter farm hilarious, and totally watchable is the fact that the little mustached gippers are the stars of the movie. Wait till you get a load of these guys. So, anyway, in Splatter Farm, the brothers Polonia pack up their mustaches, thick-lensed glasses and short shorts, and take it to the country, for the summer, to stay with their elderly aunt Lacey, and psychotic cousin Jeremy. The aunt despises one of the twins, seemingly, for no reason, but wants to get it on with the other. All of this is established long before things get weird. Soon enough, Jeremy makes sure things get real weird, with the brutal killings and whatnot. And of course, the Polonia's make sure the massive amounts of gore is as fake, and watery-looking as possible.LOL... Sweet Jesus. I swear, these low-budget Horror flicks can't be good for the IQ. This one, especially. Already considering everything I know, and everything that is painfully obvious about this movie, the fact that the theme of incest is also being toyed with, simply makes Splatter Farm all the more priceless. But it's not all incest and watery gore. Splatter Farm offers several scenes involving extreme brutality. Some things I've never even seen before. Some things that couldn't possibly be explained on IMDb. What surprises me the most is that the mustache twins continued their quest for true s.o.v. excellence, throughout the next couple decades. Think of me what you will, but I'm totally gonna have to make it my business to check out more of these Polonia efforts in the very near future. What can I say? I love this stuff. 8/10

Bickering and obnoxious twin brothers Alan (the terrible Mark Polonia) and Joseph (the equally awful John Polonia) spend the summer at a remote Pennsylvania farm with lonely and shrewish widow Aunt Lacey (the supremely annoying Marion Costly). The brothers run afoul of deranged farm hand Jeremy (deliciously played to the sneering creepy hilt by Todd Smith), who turns out to be a vicious killer who not only eats the corpses of his victims, but also has sex with them as well (gross!). Boy, does this hilariously horrendous amateur home movie horror opus possess all the so-utterly-wrong-that-they're-paradoxically-right schlock picture stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: we've got pathetic acting from a game no-name cast, dreadful dialogue (favorite line: "I hate to spoil lunch, but I got to take a s**t"), a slight meandering plot, an irritating droning synthesizer score, a plodding pace, crass humor, cruddy, ugly and smudgy shot-on-video cinematography, and plenty of cheesy gore (the blood looks like fruit punch -- and probably was exactly that!). Better still, this terrifically twisted treat serves as a veritable catalog of revolting depravity: there's cannibalism, necrophilia, self-mutilation, foul homosexual rape, and, best of all, even incestuous statutory rape (this latter part deserves bonus points because it's an old lady doing just what you think with a much younger man!). The last third of this flick is shockingly sick, strange and flat-out unnerving. A jaw-dropping ghastly marvel.

I'll admit - in pretty much every conceivable way, SPLATER FARM pretty much sucks dick. The acting is horrible, the gore is very amateurish, the technical aspects of the film (camera-work, lighting, editing, etc...) are non-existent - but to me, this is one of those films where the whole is MUCH better than the sum of it's parts.The plot revolves around twin brothers (who look like half-retarded Ralph Macchio look-alikes) who are on their way to their aunt's house for vacation. She's an old-bag that has a thing for one of the twins, which is alluded to from the get-go. She has a boy that she keeps around to do the work on the farm, and who also brings people into the barn to hack up and masturbate with their body parts. The twins notice something amiss with the farm-worker (even without seeing him jacking-off with severed arms and whatnot...) and they begin to suspect that something is up...There's so much wrong with SPLATTER FARM that I don't even know where to begin. Where it makes up for it's insane ineptitude, is in the fact that it really is quite funny, and a bit more original and thought-out than what the $7 budget would dictate. The gore scenes, though cheap, are effective for the most part, and there are a few truly decent "gross-out" moments (anal-fisting, anyone?). The storyline even has an effective "twist" in the plot that actually works. The dialog is stupid but often hilarious and I just got caught up in the super-cheap vibe of the film. It actually reminded me a bit of Jorg Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK (in terms of style, not content) but without any of J.B.'s artistry. A very strange little film - I'd suggest it to those that dig low-budget splatter. Lord knows I've seen worse by more (supposedly) "talented" directors. Just watch SPLATTER FARM and then anything by Andreas Schnaas back-to-back and I think you'll see what I mean...8.5/10