THE KILLBILLIES

THE KILLBILLIES

The latest offering from the Cryptkeeper vault is a strange hybrid of John Waters-style bad taste comedy, feel-good surf music and (naturally) lashings of outrageous violence. If that doesn't sound odd enough for you, then consider this: THE DUKES OF HAZARD meets THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE on a dark night, and are later joined by THE REVENGE OF BILLY THE KID!!!

An off-screen narrator clues us in on events so far, in the opening pre-credits sequence. It would seem two redneck families - the Lowborns and the McCoys - are locked in an ongoing family feud following the day that the Lowborns' pet pig ate Ma McCoy.

The McCoys killed the pig in retaliation - but that's not enough. As the film opens, we find Pa McCoy (Leon Fish, resembling BO SELECTA's Avid on occasion!) conspiring with his two masked hillbilly sons, plotting the murder of the Lowborn clan.

Within the first ten minutes, the McCoy boys have stumbled across - and subsequently slaughtered - a zombie (for no good reason), and we're informed that one of them was previously married to a chicken.

And that's just the beginning ... as the oddball masked duo (Raymond and Boy - who is adorned in a white polka-dot dress) embark on their revenge mission, they encounter all manner of bizarre, freaky individuals - aliens, more zombies, blind guitar-playing perverts ...

If all of the above has failed to convince you just how absurd and gross THE KILLBILLIES is striving to be - then just wait till about an hour into proceedings when Raymond (Duke Hendrix) gives birth (through his arse) to a mutant baby with a penchant for foul-mouthed insults. The birth scene is quite well-conceived (pun intended!), with decent FX and unflinching attention to graphic detail.

The film just gets sillier and sillier after this - whilst checking in occasionally with knowing nods toward DELIVERANCE, FEMALE TROUBLE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD etc.

While played for broad, often sick laughs, THE KILLBILLIES does have a degree of style about it. The McCoy boys' masks themselves are effectively creepy, and some setpieces (like the psychedelic episode where Boy is captured by a strange alien cult) are imaginatively shot. There's also a few surprise dalliances with different styles of film technique: the kaleidoscope FX of the cult scene; the subtitle captions during Raymond's zombie-rape scene, etc.

Cheap, amateur and cheery - this is a gleefully tasteless labour of love for all parties concerned. The gore is largely of the 'splashes of red' variety, and much less likely to cause offence than the dialogue (choice example: three female campers discussing sex, "It ain't incest if you say yes"!!).

Visually the film is presented in it's original aspect ratio of approx 1.78:1. The video transfer is generally solid, and pleasingly free from video artifacting for the large part. Night scenes struggle to hold themselves together - such is the burden of so many shot-on-video productions when it comes to their translation to DVD. Curiously, the lack of visual clarity in (some of) the night scenes doesn't harm the movie: rather, they add to the cheap fun feel of the absurdities unfurling onscreen. Colours are a tad too deep and bright, but it's a minor quibble. The audio track is presented in Dolby 2.0 and is very competent indeed - a pleasingly beefy track.

The disc is short on extras, but does offer a trailer (1 minute long) and some quite amusing out-takes.

At 80 minutes long, the film has been equipped with 15 chapters. A rather dull static menu pages allows you access to these. The disc is Region 0 PAL encoded, and comes in a black keepcase.

For ordering details visit the Cryptkeeper site by clicking here.

Review by Stu Willis


 
Released by Cryptkeeper
Region All PAL
Rated 18 (uncut)
Extras : see main review
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