Oh, look! Another low-budget slasher that purports itself to be a love letter to 80s slashers - along with bro culture, marriage, relationships, and those questionable life choices. Imagine The Hangover if Jason Voorhees showed up halfway through and started roasting marshmallows along with human carnage.
You’ve stumbled upon Massacre at Femur Creek, the new Canadian horror comedy from writer/producer/director Kyle Hytonen.
Yes, it’s cheesy. The kind of cheesy that makes you wonder if the script was written on a cocktail napkin after a night of Jägerbombs. The blood looks suspiciously like strawberry jam, the props seem to have come straight from a yard sale, and the “creek” might just be someone’s leaky backyard pool. But somehow, SOMEHOW, it works! The actors - fully committed to their roles as lovable idiots - deliver every line with just the right amount of self-awareness.
Standouts among the cast are Eric De Santis as the kind of stoner best friend who’d forget his own birthday but never forgets to bring party favors and emotional support for all your existential crises, and Conall Pendergast for playing the kind of divorcee who treats love like a bad investment and doles out relationship advice like a pyromaniac offering fire safety tips. Composer Mike Trebilcock’s synth-heavy soundtrack slaps so hard it feels like it should come with a free Walkman. The humor is most definitely dumb, crude, and immature, but it’s also surprisingly clever like a bad dad joke you can’t help but laugh at.
Director Hytonen along with co-producer Derek Lukosius have the rare gift of making a shoestring budget look like it had a trust fund, proving that with enough creativity, grit, and just the right amount of cinematic trickery, you can turn pocket lint into movie magic. With vintage cars, picturesque locations, and a wedding sequence convincing enough to fool your local priest - the low-budget trappings of this movie look deceptively lavish, veiled by producers who probably funded the film by trolling the bottom of a wishing well for loose change.
By the end, you realize that Massacre at Femur Creek isn’t the dumpster fire you thought it was - it’s more like a scrappy little campfire fueled by passion and bad decisions. Sure, it’s cheap, but it’s got enough heart, energy, and offbeat charm to claw its way out of the bargain bin and into your guilty-pleasure list. Sometimes, a little bad taste is exactly what the doctor ordered—assuming your doctor’s a mad scientist with a soft spot for chaos.
CineDump