2007
If your movie has to use its title to tell you it’s supposed to be funny, it’s probably not. And “Brutal Massacre: A Comedy” makes for brutal viewing. The mockumentary is not the “Spinal Tap” for the horror genre as a box quote proudly proclaims; heck, I’m not even sure it qualifies as a comedy “? that’s how bereft it is of laughs.
The film follows B-movie legend Harry Penderecki (a near-unrecognizable David Naughton, “An American Werewolf in London”) as he attempts to make a comeback with a fright film about a serial killer. Everything that could go wrong, does “? including his one-take bare breast shot turning up out-of-focus “? so hilarity should ensue, but every joke feels written rather than real. The mockumentary genre is a tough one to pull off, partly because it requires far more than just deadpan pauses to wring chuckles (and even those pauses are pass
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.