Director – Brendan Jackson Rogers (The Walking Inbred)
Starring – Fred Lass, Malone Thomas (The Perfect Murder), and Mitch Myman
Release Date – 2014
Rating – 4/5
Things have been crazy here at the House of Blacktooth. I haven’t mentioned this much in my reviews but my wife and I were expecting a little boy that was due to be here March 26th. He surprised mommy and daddy and arrived just yesterday while we were unprepared. I was slowly getting his room together while I worked full time, took care of my pregnant wife, and be a father to by 22 month old little girl. This has put some of my reviews on hold and one of those films is Bubba the Redneck Werewolf.
I found this film last October while I was looking around on Facebook. The film looked fun as hell so I reached out to them. Sadly, they did not reply to me and I forgot about them until a friend of mine, mrparka, reviewed it on his YouTube channel. I reached back out to their Facebook page and they were kind enough to hook me up with a link to an online screener.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows the down on his luck Bubba. Bubba works at an animal shelter where he cleans the shit out of the dog cages. Bubba loves his job and simple life but his girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, wants a man that can take up for his self and has a four slice toaster. She finds a man that meets those requirements and leaves Bubba. Bubba is heart broken and hits his favorite watering hole to drown his sorrows when he meets a man clad in red with horns who promises to make Bubba strong with a bad ass beard if he just signs a contract. Bubba agrees and the red man pays to get him drunk.
The next morning Bubba awakens to find himself covered in fur and stronger than before. Bubba is now a werewolf. He heads back to his bar to drink it up before getting back his girl. However, Bubba is unaware that the red man, the devil, is running through town tricking people into signing contracts. Now they want Bubba to take on the devil to get their contracts back.**Spoiler Alert**
I grew up on horror. Goosebumpspulled me in when I was in 4th grade and I never looked back. I watched anything and everything horror. TheGoosebumps show and book series really shaped my love for the genre with their clever puns, cliches, stories, and cheesy characters. That is why I love slashers and the films from Troma so much. I feel they are the adult cinematic equivalent to those books I was reading as a kid. The titles for these films always set the mood. That was why I wanted to see Bubba the Redneck Werewolf. The title itself gets the viewer in the mindset that they are watching a horror comedy. I knew the film would be good but I had no idea it would be as good as it was.
The acting in this one is not consistent. The film has two different Bubbas. The first is Bubba pre-werewolf. This Bubba is genuine and fun at times but some of the scenes felt like he was trying way too hard to be a southern imbecile. The other Bubba, werewolf Bubba, was very funny and never broke character. I loved how he was able to juggle stupid with raw power. It was fun and all his scenes were a blast to watch. The remainder of the cast did a great job as well. In fact, my favorite performance came from Mitch Hyman who plays The Devil. Hyman was brilliant and brought a lot of sinister charm to the film. I would love to see this character get his own flick.
The story for this one is one we have seen so many times before but with a new spin. We have seen so many films in the past, mostly sci-fi or action flicks, that focus on a small town or community that are under threat from some evil force and rely on one person or a team to stop it. This is a general story that can be adapted to almost any setting. We have the children’s film Adventures in Dinosaur City, the post-apocalyptic action film Mad Max: Road Warrior, and dozens of horror films that have this same story. This story works great as a horror comedy. Hell, it even reminded me a lot of another werewolf horror comedy, Wolfcop. I tried not to compare the two films but the comparison needed to be made.
Finally, the film does have a several on screen kills that have some solid practical effects. Most of these kills do show the film’s budget but they are still very rewarding. The film, also, has a decent amount of CGI and visual effects that are not that impressive and cheapen the film. They should have skipped on these additions. Overall, Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is a ferociously funny good time. The film has a charm all it’s own and deserves to be seen. Check this one out as soon as you can.
