Movie Review: Butchered (2010)

By James DePaolo

Plot: A group of teens decide to spend the weekend on a local island to say their final goodbyes before heading off to college. Little do they know, a convicted serial killer escapes from the authorities while on death row at a maximum security prison. Touted in the headlines of the local papers as "The Butcher" (due to the manner he hacked up his victims in the local town deli), he takes cover on THE VERY SAME ISLAND as the teens. It becomes a battle for survival as the teens attempt to fight back against this unimaginable foe played by Shaun O' Rourke.



Review - As a horror fan or reviewer, you are subjected to a lot of low budget movies. Some hit the mark, and some miss. This one was a surprise. What a fun little old school slasher film. The movie centers around the Butcher, Terrance Skinner ( played by D.J.Naylor) who escaped police custody, and is on the loose. The film has such a Halloween feel to it. Esp. the scene in the beginning with the woman who hears a noise and is searching around in her house. This movie is fun, campy and just a good low budget movie.

The plot is predictable, the script is your basic old school horror script. But, the film had such a nostalgic feel to it. The main part of the movie involves some teens who decide to take off for a weekend of drinking, partying and sex to a remote deserted island, and come to find out the Butcher is there. The movie is not perfect. At 77 minutes, it does take about 20 minutes to build up characters and subplots. Some of the kills were off-screen. This is no gore-fest or torture porn. This is 1977-82 horror, done in 2010. It has a good amount of kills and scenes that worked. I can recommend this.