a Primal Root written review
Ah, Memorial Day weekend! The unofficial kickoff to the summer season when the nuclear family packs up in their camper and/or station wagon and heads out to the sticks to get back to and commune with Mother Nature all while filling their guts with grilled hotdogs, dozens of beers and leaving plenty of refuse and carnage in their wake sure to leave a nice, shitty footprint on the ever cracking skull of the fragile ecosystem you just pissed all over during your long weekend.
If ANYTHING I feel like this is the theme Memorial Valley Massacre, the straight to video 1989 slasher flick, nails right on the everlovin’ head. Mankind’s rape and pillaging of Mother Nature. Before the Massacre part even begins we are introduced to real estate developer and tycoon, Allen Sangster played by the late, great Cameron Mitchel of Raw Force and Space Mutiny notoriety. And, yes, his last name is one letter away from “Gangster” and he is basically, as written and portrayed, a carbon copy of our current U.S. President, Donald Trump. The film begin with him inspecting his recent development, Memorial Valley Park, which should be opening RIGHT THEN as he is inspecting it. He soon learns that there are dead dogs bobbing in the park’s water supply, there’s no electricity at all in the park, the restroom facilities aren’t functional and a contractor was crushed in an accident earlier in the day.
As the impressive amount of angry, impatient campers gather at the gate to the park, Allen Sangster, who is only in it for the possibility of further developing the land with a shopping mall, high scale condominiums, and a sporting arena, says “fuck it” and opens up the park, and before departing for the rest of the movie, leaves only three dip shits running the place; his son David (Mark Mears) who has a Masters PHD in survivalism (…huh?), Deke Brown (Jimmy Justice) taking custodial duties *snicker*, also exposition duties as well as the wise, old, sage. To be honest, he’s by far and away my favorite character int he movie and probably the most charismatic performance next to the girl who does a strip tease later on in the flick. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Last but certainly not least is the silver fox drunkard, Vietnam Veteran, expert tracker turned Forest Ranger who once lost his son in the woods due to some convoluted story about a ransom exchange gone wrong when his kid was kidnapped. This older hardass and constant asshole is George Webster (John “Not That One” Kerry), the man who can knock back two entire bottles of Jack Daniels in about 35 seconds flat and still function enough to let everyone around him perish and blame it one everyone else before passing out on the front porch of his cabin/general store.
Everyone and their Grandmother seems to have come out for this grand opening of Memorial Valley Park! We have a what appears to be a literal cast of thousands, and they all have speaking rolls and are such a strange mixture of typical slasher movie jerks, you’re left wondering, once everyone is introduced, just who are going to be the heroes in this thing and who is just hear to be torn into meaty chunks? There’s a six piece biker gang straight of Friday the 13th part III, an annoying, overweight and hugely moronic family straight out of Halloween II: Season the Witch, a hard drinking, heavy smoking retired Army General who has a wife who makes him sandwiches and has a massive set of knockers, but my favorite is the trio of teens who show up, two guys and girl, who are unfathomably rude to people and both guys are in constant competition to see who is going to get the pleasure of sharing a moist and stinky sleeping bag with their female companion during the long weekend. She’s well aware of the situation, they even discuss it, and it’s a way out in the open character dynamic I’ve not come across very often in these kind of dumb as rocks slasher films. OH, I nearly forgot, there’s also a gorgeous, incredibly well fit, super under dressed single woman there camping by herself who refuses help from the studly PHD Survivalist, David, when offer to help her pitch a tent. “Just let me know if you need anything…ANYTHING.” he says before he calls off his dogs and stops bugging the shit out of her when she has stressed multiple times that she is a strong, independent woman who pitches tents with NO MAN! Yeah, you can guess where this is going…
Turns out there’s a twenty something wild man roaming Memorial Valley, dropping dead dogs into water tanks, dozens of snakes onto camper’s picnic tables, and freaking out over every noise he hears. Early on it is established that this young gymnastic cave dweller credited as Hermit and played by John Caso (in what would be his first and final cinematic appearance) is a passive lover of nature and all living things, preferring to eat berries he collects from the bountiful offerings of the shrubbery found in Monument Valley and sharing them with the cute mice that infest his cave. All this changes when he encounters a three wheeling, thieving, overweight kid, who he chases for about ten minutes before clothes lining him to the terra firmer. The caveman honestly doesn’t mean this big baby any harm, but the kid pulls out a hunting knife and slashes Hermit in the face as the lightning and thunder strike and the mid afternoon sun disappears instantly plunging them into darkness as Hermit takes the knife happy teenager and snaps his neck like a little bitty twig. From here…Hermit never looks back and begins killing every camper he encounters.
We are treated to a a social that takes place in the pouring rain between all the characters that have dialog. Some ghost stories are told, exposition is dropped, bikers act like insecure assholes, and that one cute chick with the two teenage boys lusting for her love tunnel, decides to rush into the monsoon and begin gyrating in the downpour and pretty much going home with the blue ribbon in her one woman wet t-shirt contest. But, the excitement is over before it really begins and everyone disperses to enjoy the torrential downpour in their little tribes.
David ends up taking the woman who gave him the cold shoulder back to her tent. He name is Cheryl and they end up stripping nekkid for one another in order to stay warm before David, the PHD in Survivalism, remember, suggests the should generate body heat together in order to stay warm. This smooth operator bites her towel off and starts kissing he heaving bosom like his life is depending on it. Meanwhile, the three teens are visited by ab absolutely adorable grizzly bear who pokes his head through their tent interrupting their argument about their female companion being a “cock teasing bitch.” The bear departs as quickly as he arrives, the teens peek their head out and see the bloodied carcass of the fat boy and scream their heads off, interrupting the attractive survivalist boinking going on in the tent next door.
The next morning, upon the news that there is a vicious animal stalking the woods, hungry for stringy human flesh, all the campers without speaking parts decide to pack it up and head home leaving us with our rag tag group of misfits who the rangers give away guns and ammunition too like they’re handing out Halloween candy and send them out into the woods to kill whatever animal is causing this carnage in Memorial Valley Park! It doesn’t take long before bikers, horn dogs and rangers begin falling into pits of spikes, being fully penetrated with spears and throw IN to pits of spikes, and chopped into pieces with an axe as our little Hermit decides EVERYONE MUST PERISH this Memorial Day Weekend! Which all leads to final standoff with, of course, his Father, George, who lost him in the botched ransom drop of 17 years ago. The drunken tracker must now face off agains his lost son who raised himself in the wild and had no access to proper dental care and was educated int he school of hard knocks. With Memorial Valley already bathed in blood, will this mark the end of the carnage?
Memorial Valley Massacre is, yes, very bad, very basic, and has that well worn fell of a film that stuck together a bunch of concepts and plot points from previous successful horror films and made on of their own. Let us count the ways, The Hills Have Eyes, Friday the 13th, Predator, etc. It’s got a bit of everything thrown in, but at least they’re lifting from some great source material. As I watched Memorial Valley Massacre with my wife Bootsie Kidd, she mentioned despite it’s flaws, it does have a lot of charm. And I have to agree with her. That charm, is Memorial Valley Massacre’s saving grace. The screenplay has enough witty humor to prop the material up on, the performances are all game, solid and when not totally believable, are otherwise, hilarious as are many of the gags that highlight the often thoughtless way we interact with the natural world. It even has one of those classic, hysterical, “Do you smell gas?” moments right before some characters are transformed into post toasties! It’s bargain basement level inept, but it’s content is undoubtably entertaining in the Trash Cinema tradition. And sometimes, man, that is good enough.
I award Memorial Valley Massacre THREE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.
Be safe out there, Gang, and have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
Stay Trashy!
-Root
trashcinemacollective.com 