ANDRE THE BUTCHER (2005)

An audacious revelry of skin and sin, Andre The Butcher is an enthusiastic if uneven chunk-blowing ode to the glory-gory days of splatter. Rude, raunchy, and as rich in yucks asyeachs, this banner of bad taste is a slapstick homage of the surface conventions, themes, and clichés of the Slasher sub-genre. Devoted to death and deadpan, the genre’s unapologetic love for lovingly-staged violence, style over story, and a wonderfully cheap exploitation of female sexuality is emphasized. Andre successfully makes fun of the very conventions of theme and style that make the adolescent mentality and outrageous carnage of such films so unapologetically crass.
A group of bitchy cheerleaders and a guy (Cheerleader Camp anyone?) are stranded in the gloomy depths of a forest when their bus breaks down on the way to a competition. Finding refuge in a deserted hunting lodge in the Florida backwoods, they bicker, bond, and show skin while the story grunts and gasps for excuses to bring on bloodshed. Happily, this occurs frequently, and with an enthusiasm that helps make up for technical deficiencies. When flesh is flayed, the cheapness of the effects weigh in somewhere between the cheesiness of H. G Lewis and the even worse efforts of a Grade Z production. This, like the over dramatized acting, is part of the movie’s charm. When darkness falls, so do the bodies, as local legend 'Andre the Butcher' waddles into the frame, demanding that all sinners repent -- and ya gotta know, he’s not here to hear confession! Stretching believability, the filmmakers, attempting to lend their tongue-in-cheek parody further flavor, approach the absurd by revealing that Andre’s new job description includes collecting people as the meat for a Hell stew!

Consciously avoiding any pretense of realism or suspense that the best Slashers inspired with macabre atmosphere and psycho-sexual themes, Andre never pretends to be serious; it wants nothing more than to be a lewd, rude, lunatic descent into raunchy escapades, slapstick, and genre in-jokes. Characters are just as varied (and as outrageous) as the carnality, including April Billingsley (Jasmine), a nip-nibbling lesbian, Maury Sterling (Hoss), and Justin Capaz (Jimbo) as the effeminate male-cheerleader. Ron Jeremy as The Butcher brings instant cult appeal to the moronic maneuverings. Of course the REAL characters of this juicy journey into horror homage is the viscous viscera, including s knife-in-the-eye, flesh-eating, innards pouring out of opened skin, whirling meat cleavers, and everything else you love.
A veritable catalogue of this much-maligned if primal cinematic form, Andre is occasionally too apparent in its love for -- and willingness to honor -- its chunk-blowing heroes, trading spontaneity for a paint-by-numbers sensibility that doesn’t allow it to be anything but satire. If you understand this from the beginning, its easy to appreciate its perverse pleasures. Including every cliché imaginable, from a mad killer stalking lovelies through the isolation of the woods, to bawdy babes with big breasts and no brains, this severed head of celluloid combines surface action with scathing wit. While characters are more often caricatures than realistically developed personas, this seems exactly the intention-- the characters, like everything else in this film (locations, mood, dialogue, gags) are mirror images of ‘other’ movies’ characters and conventions. Surface thrills and quick-moving action compensates for the director’s lack of focus, and the enjoyable fervor with which the carnage unwinds makes the film enjoyable despite itself, pleasing in the odd way that only sleaze-cheese can. Starring Rod Jeremy, the humor is admittedly aimed at adolescents and somehow all the more fun for it.

The visual quality is surprisingly clear, although no amount of polish can make up for the cheap production values, which themselves lend an atmosphere of grind house to the proceedings. Audio is likewise commendable, including Dolby Digital 5.1 & English Dolby Digital 2.0 in English, with optional Spanish subtitles. Extras are as minimal as the budget, including an audio commentary with Cruz and Billingsley, a deleted scene, and trailers.

Poking good-natured fun at itself, its premise, and its audience, Andre the Butcher slashes preconceptions and tenants of good taste as easily (and with as much blood-shed) as Andre hews through flesh. Meaty, moronic, and marvelously morbid, this flesh-feast is unapologetic in its determination to be bad in a way that only cult films can.