Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. A faithful AICN HORROR reader Bradley caught the new John Schneider directed horror pic called SMOTHERED a while back. The film stars some very familiar faces if you’re a fan of horror. Here’s what Bradley had to say about it.
I was lucky enough to be in NOLA on the weekend for a screening of an independent movie from John Schneider (Bo Duke, Pa Kent) called SMOTHERED.This movie is basically THIS IS THE END with horror guys in it instead of comedy guys. Or THE EXPENDABLES – with horror guys. Up front, don’t be expecting to see Robert Englund, Tony Todd, Brad Dourif or those kinds of calibre horror guys – these are more the D-guys, like Bill Mosely and Kane Hodder, but for what it is, the movie really works. If Englund did reject this movie because of money, shame… it’s better than half the movies he’s been in in the last decade.
Funny enough Kane Hodder (Jason) has the lead role. Plays himself. As does everyone in it. But Kane is the main guy. Kane Hodder, R.A. Mihailoff, Bill Moseley, Don Shanks, Malcolm Danare are at this crappy horror convention – which is something they’d all know about – and they get offered a bunch of cash to go and scare the shit out of some people at the local trailer park. When they get there they discover they’ve been hired by the trailer park owner, this frightening-looking thing played by Amy Brassette. She has a hot, big boobied daughter, played by Brea Grant. So the guys start “haunting” the trailer park as they promised but nothing goes to plan because someone is knocking them off one-by-one instead.
There’s lots of blood, but there’s some funny in-jokes too. But it’s funny that none of the movies that the guys are famous for are directly referenced and I guess that’s because Schneider couldn’t afford the legal rights to the names ‘Jason’ etc. In fact, Hodder is known for playing ‘Mason’ in this one.I’m thinking Englund was offered a role in the movie though because Mosely is playing a character called Teddy, who is an obvious ha ha to Freddy. Only he has pistols on his fingers. It would’ve worked better if Englund had done it, but Mosely seemed to be having fun.
Schneider is the last person I expected would be able to direct a horror movie – nothing he has done before even suggests he could do that. I think of him as this squeaky clean, peaches and cream country boy – not some guy who likes seeing Kane Hodder mashed to death. But seems the guy either has a wicked side or he owed someone a big favor, because he did it – and he did it well.
I think the vfx guys probably backed him up a lot though because he got good value for money with them by looks of that budget. These effects guys dish up some good stuff. I was surprised it looked so good. You can still tell the movie is low-budget, but Schneider obviously worked a lot on it so it didn’t look like Asylum low-budget shit. It actually looks good. Not FREDDY VS JASON good – but maybe FRIDAY THE 13TH 2 good.
There’s no distribution for the movie yet and that’s why this premiere was smallish and low key and mainly for people that worked on the movie in the area of Louisiana, where it was shot, but it reminded me a lot of TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL and it found a home, so I think this will come to get one too.There’s a chance here this could be a fun franchise – and next time hopefully they have a bit more money, so they can play with guys like Englund etc. I nominate Englund, Lankenkamp, Lance Henriksen, Dourif, and some of the Michael Myers guys.
Anyway, that’s SMOTHERED!
Thanks Bradley! I’m getting ready to check this film out myself, and from the review above I can’t wait to check this one out. Look for my review in a future AICN HORROR column.
