Movie Review: Fear Town, USA (2014)

Fear Town, USA (2014) - USA - Comedy - Not Rated (adult themes)

Directed by Brandon Bassham

Stars Anna Callegari, Cody Lindquist, Amber Sophia Nelson, Mark Vigeant, Dan Kenkel, Jon Bershad, James McCarthy, Dan Black, Avery Monson, Matt Mayer, Dan Chamberlain, Dana Clinkman, Patrick Foy, Dan Hodapp, Ari Scott, Marcus Bishop-Wright

Well made, well paced and funny low budget slasher/horror spoof is not without its surprises too.

An odd assortment of what seems to be about everybody in town, from college girls dying to get their pussies crushed to any assortment of others who have no idea what that means, converge on the party of the year. Not everybody is invited though, but that doesn't keep geeks looking to get laid, a teenage girl looking for love in truly the wrong places, a ghost stalking one of the party guests, a masked killer on the loose, or a group of misfit stoners, one of whom smells like urine, from inviting themselves. It will be the party of the year, for anybody who survives it.

This movie is a real find and a real hoot! Reported on various sites to have been made on a budget of only $10,000 by a group of film students, it sure does not look cheap, and the acting and comedy are as good as in any average studio produced movie you'll find in stores in DVD bins and straight-to-video collections; actually I think the comedy and timing are even better. Even though it takes quite a bit of its humor from older slasher movies there is a lot that is fresh and hip for today. 

It is not a movie that is for everybody if your tastes do not include horror, lots of humor, lots of references to sex, and even the bizarre. If your tastes do not include that, what the hell are you doing watching movies? Not a sex movie, but definitely not for children, or the easily or even mildly offended, because of some of the subject matter.

Every decade has its movies that are iconic for its genre and set the bar for others to follow. In horror comedy such classics as Motel Hell and Return of the Living Dead were iconic for the 80s and Tremors for the 90s, for example. Fear Town, USA is the horror comedy of its decade setting the bar high for others to follow. With its high laugh ratio, a sharply layered script that is simply brilliant, and the sickest ending, it puts to shame most of the movies it parodies and in this reviewer's opinion is iconic.

My Rating: 4 Fingers. Though some seams of a low budget production show through, they are not too many. I might normally give such a production 3 fingers, but the comedy and the brilliant script lift it well above that and so I give it 4 fingers.

Watch the horror comedy destined to be a cult classic for free on YouTube.

Get Fear Town, USA with The Slashening double-feature in full HD on Blu-ray.

Toxic Fletch