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Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Released to video in 2010 and directed by Charles Stewart Jr., "Butchered" details events on the coast of North Carolina when a group of high school grads take one last camping trip to their favorite party island. Unfortunately, a mad butcher is on the loose.While this is a micro-budget slasher flick with the typical problems therein (e.g. sound) it's competently made and delivers the goods for what it is. Some thought was actually put into the script as the likable main characters are effectively fleshed-out. The acting ain't bad either, at least for obscure no-names. There are a few fetching nubile females and you can't beat the North Carolina coastal cinematography. If you like the Friday the 13th flicks and can handle no-budget independent productions "Butchered" is worth checking out.The film runs 71 minutes and was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, and nearby Carolina Beach State Park. The script was written by Shaun O'Rourke, Sheila Brothers & Roxanne Marchand.GRADE: B-

"Butchered" is a neatly packed, burst of low-budget slasher horror directed by Charles Stewart Jr. with co-directors Sheila Brothers and Shaun O'Rourke. Honestly I hope those are more honorary co-directing credits, because I don't see why a film that falls just over an hour really needs multiple directors, but whateve. That is no issue really. "Butchered"stars the standard cast of characters played by Timothy Woodward Jr., Nikki Beall, Cory Broadwater, Robert Covington, Kit Johnson, D.J. Naylor, Jaime Moffett, plus a few other actors in a story that follows a group of friends, who take off on vacay to a small secluded island, off the coast of the Carolinas. The story is a nice, classic nightmare of slasher fanfare that places the young up against the force of a homicidal psycho, butcher. The set- up is thought out, leading us through a nice, "all fall down" scenario that, considering the budget and talent, manages to create an easy, story arc. The dialog is a bit underwhelming, and melodramatic, but it gets you there fundamentally. Personally I think the writing is too "over-thought" with the material seeming cliché and unauthentic. However this is only a slight hindrance and nothing that effects the ability to watch the film. Some characters are more driven to emote the stories intentions while a couple stagger through the lines and scenes systematically. Still this is a "slice-n-dice" flick so all they need to do is be there and die for the camera. This they definitely do. The acting is the quality you would expect in a low-budget flick like this, like I stated before some actors give a better performance than others. The actual dialog and character development is sort of weak, often creating disconnected and unconvincing performances. Still there are moments when the acting and dramatic character interactions pick-up and deliver, giving us some suspense and enough connection to move the story along. The actual story is a pretty nice "birth of a slasher" narrative with recognizable 80 slasher influence. As for the special effects and sound effects in "Butchered" I am split on both. The music and instrumental created the desired effect that Stewart was aiming for, my issue is I felt it was hokey, white-washed and too damn sugary. Plus the timing for these elements coming in to the scenes, guiding the feeling of the story, often seemed "over produced" and a bit too clichéd. It created an unintended cheese factor that came off more Disney than horror. The special effects on the other hand worked for most of the kill scenes, with nice camera angles, little editing tricks that leave the gore implied, like the vintage horror films used, give credibility to the scenes.The blood and visceral elements are practical effects. They are limited with most deaths and brutality implied, but enough shows to create a nice effect. The killer is a menacing monster guy with the stoic brutality of any antagonist in slasher horror. I know it sounds like I didn't like the film but I did, actually. It isn't anything special but for a cut-down film that is only a few minutes over an hour, "Butchered" gives a comparable, quick, slasher nightmare.

While most might argue that the Butcher was a terrible movie, I try to find the positive side of the light. While they weren't laying any new mile stones for the horror genre they did have a good back story to the main character. I liked the idea that he was a Desert Storm Vet who went nuts, but I would have liked it a lot more had they made him a little less "big and dumb." In the beginning we see a great montage of torture and gore, but when push comes to shove all he does is hack up the characters on the island. Why didn't he torture them? Why didn't he make things out of their bodies? Some butcher. There are a couple of nice nudity scenes in the film, hot chicks, okay dialogue, nice cinematography and editing. 71 minutes made it just barely a feature, why they couldn't have filmed another 20 minutes of footage is beyond me. It could have been a masterpiece of indie horror but they just didn't get all the way to the finish line.

The quote in the review's subject is the actual tagline for this 2010 straight-to-video horror quickie poetically entitled …"Butchered". Hmm, I guess someone confused classic horror with amateur nonsense. Yes I'm looking at you Mr. and Mrs. Writers/Co-directors! But then again, you honestly can't be too harsh in your criticism because basically they only had the modest ambition to make a very straightforward and rudimentary slasher picture to bring homage to all the trash released during the glorious 1980's. "Butchered" is a (barely) 70 minutes long series of ancient clichés, usual stereotypes and a whole lot of predictable situations. Somewhere in a quiet harbor town in North Carolina – of all places - there's a deranged axe-wielding serial killer on the lam. His name is Terence Skinner and he used to work in the butcher shop of his parents, but then went bonkers after his return from the Gulf war and massacred more than 40 people. Or at least that's what the journalist explains during the opening credits, which have some pretty cool musical guidance as well. In the nearby town, a handful of teenagers decide to spend one last weekend partying together before they head off for college. They go to a little island to camp and have random sex, but guess who they bump into there! All the potboiler elements that you except to see are well-presented: campfire stories, mobile phones without a signal, people stupidly splitting up to search missing friends and agonizing dialogs like "Oh my God, we're so going to die!!". "No, shut up, we're not going to die!". In good old 80's tradition, you can also immediately predict the order in which the teenagers are going to knocked off. Starting with the cute looking but redundant random girls, onwards to the sex-obsessed dumb friend and then quickly towards the loyal black guy and his girlfriend. The gore and the killings are disappointingly lame and monotonous. We're talking mainly about swinging and flying axes, but we aren't seeing the actual impact. Terence Skinner is a boring and unimaginative killer without any sort of charisma or "specialty". There's one sequence in which his silhouette stands motionless amidst the trees and covered in fog. I rather liked that sight because it promptly reminded me of "Madman" and that's a personal favorite (better call it "guilty pleasure") of mine. "Butchered" is available on a cheap disc together with three other masterpieces of amateur horror, so if you pick up a DVD like that at Walmart, you pretty much know what to expect.