Charlie's Farm

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Andy J Overall good but would have been better if the killer wasn't introduced at the start so maintaining a mystery for longer. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 06/19/20 Full Review Audience Member It plays like a low budget "outback" version of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Devil's Rejects" and "Castle Freak" were tossed in a blender......Short story...I've seen worse. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member It could have used a better script but it wasn't bad for a lower budget slasher. Plenty of kills and some fun ones to boot. Also, the killer is pretty great. He is huge and absolutely terrifying. He makes Kane Hodder look like a toddler. If you are a fan of slasher movies stop reading and queue it up. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member No cliche left unused in this by-the-numbers splatter movie. All concerned look like they wish they were doing something else. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member i really enjoyed watching this, great cast and no too over the top! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Being one of the more notorious titles released under the Monster Pictures label, Charlie's Farm sounded like an entertaining thrill ride. When the screenplay gets the characters to the point of actual dialogue, my first thought was that the writing had to be satirical. The language is so ridiculous that the actors don't even pretend to be serious about it as they force the hammy dialogue upon audiences to reinforce the ridiculous pace of the film's intro. It might take a while for audiences to figure out if Charlie's Farm is a poorly written horror film or an intentionally bad movie. Ultimately, it walks the line somewhere between the two. The film intentionally follows a horror movie formula with all the stock characters, cliche dialogue and predictable plot points that naturally come with it. Yet ultimately the satirical element is not all that rich so instead the film ends up being largely just another formulaic horror film. It's obviously self-aware and very competently made, but it's never clear just what kind of angle Chris Sun wants to take with it. The mood of the film shifts back and forth between trying to be legitimately horrific and just poking fun at the situation the story is presenting. Either way, the film is never funny enough to embrace its satirical elements. The humour in the film is just lazy because it mostly comes from intentionally poor dialogue with the added twist of Australian lingo as well as the nature of the titular character Charlie. But nothing really hits. Charlie's Farm could have been a straightforward horror film, but the attempts to add humour into the experience in a cheap attempt to innovative a clearly conventional narrative never really works. Most of the time it's easy to enjoy a formulaic horror film if it professionally constructed. Charlie's Farm certainly has the credibility of some solid production values and stylish direction from Chris Sun, but as a writer he is yet to produce any results worthy of a recommendation. His story is predictable in every sense of the word and the dialogue just serves to hit viewers over the head with a reminder of this again and again, yet it doesn't really do any good. If Charlie's Farm spent less time emphasizing its cliche plot points and shifted a greater focus on building atmosphere then it may have been a more powerful experience. Unfortunately, we are instead left with a story that spends so much time fretting over its stock characters despite the fact that there is nothing interesting about any of them. The film is way too talkative and slowly paced with few scenes depicting any kind of horror whatsoever, and this is all made worse by the fact that the actual horror sequences are the best moments in the film. Chris Sun clearly knows how to build an intense horror atmosphere and use mediated blood and gore, but he doesn't use it enough. Charlie's Farm has a perfectly convincing setting which is captured with strong cinematography and given further atmospheric support by a strong musical score, but the actual horror in the film ends up being way too sporadic and so audiences will find themselves waiting around a lot of the time. And when the horror does finally rear its head, it's over in an instant. Just when you think Charlie's Farm has found its footing, the film comes to an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. Chris Sun knows how to work style into his film which suggests that he may have greater potential if he tries again in the future, but for the time being Charlie's Farm serves as a stylishly constructed piece of misguided ambitions. On top of it all, the standard for acting in Charlie's Farm is fairly minimal. Character development is not an intended high point of the film just as scripting isn't, and so the cast make a conscious effort to half-ass it throughout the film. They're completely aware of what they're doing and take a carefree approach which may appeal to audiences who find the supposed humourous edge of Charlie's Farm to be effective, but there isn't any kind of major impression that comes from it. Sam Coward contributes a heavily stereotypical Australian archetype with an idiocy intended to make him one of the major sources of comic relief and occasionally his energy has sparks of entertainment, but everyone else fails to make much of an impact. If anything, it's much of a distraction that washed-up Hollywood actress Tara Reid plays such a major role in an Australian film. I don't know what vibe was intended to be established with her casting, but I was all-too often distracted by the high definition focus on her cosmetic surgery-retouched face. It's a rather shallow criticism to make, but as she is naturally an actress who fits the low standard of acting in the film there is little she can do about it. And since she appears to spend so much of the production bored with herself, audiences are most likely to share her opinion. Bill Moseley is the cast member to look out for in Charlie's Farm. Hardcore horror movie fans will already be doing that given that the actor has a cinematic legacy for his work with Rob Zombie and iconic effort as Chop Top in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), but he is also the only majorly interesting character. While everyone else is walking a pretentious line between serious and satire, Bill Moseley just plays his role as a straight-up hick. His presence is obviously fan service, but he also sinks so naturally into the character that he manages to fit into the film really easily. Bill Moseley's presence is brief but nonetheless enjoyable. The same audience should appreciate the presence of Kane Hodder, even if his role is just as brief yet more arbitrary. Nathan Jones also makes a decent effort. His character is a purely physical one whose redeeming factors include his creepy makeup and tall stature, but Nathan Jones knows how to act through it all. He stands tall with his gigantic stature and restrains his movements like a statue at times before unleashing himself into swift acts of violence at others. He seems to have fun with his character's insane taste for violence and senseless sadism, and he is a genuinely intimidating presence. Nathan Jones' portrays a character who is underdeveloped and receives way too little screentime, but he is an assured highlight anytime audiences get the chance to see him. Charlie's Farm has impressive production values and the best intentions, but the imbalance of horror and comedy in the tone combined with slow pacing and a shortage of thrills makes for an unsatisfying experience. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Charlie's Farm

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