Director – Carl Lindbergh (The Bunnyman Massacre)
Starring – Cheryl Texiera (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Matthew Albrecht (Buck Wild), and Alaina Gianci (Shooting Puppies)
Release Date – 2011
Rating – 3/5
Tagline – “All the pretty girls die young”
Slashers and holidays go together like slashers and having sex in the woods and slashers and drinking and smoking pot in the woods. I love when a holiday approaches. It usually means I can break out a holiday themed slasher, or six, and enjoy myself. As Easter approached I decided to open up one of the several horror collections I have that included a few Easter themed horror flicks.
The first one I came to was 2009’s Bunnyman. I found a 15 film horror set one day while shopping at Wal-Mart and couldn’t pass it up. I knew nothing of the film other than the poster work had a figure dressed as an Easter bunny carrying a chainsaw. That is all I needed to know so with Easter around the corner I opened that box set up and gave it a go.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows a group of beautiful twenty-somethings (original huh?) as they travel down a rural road when one of them angers a truck driver…wearing an Easter costume. This leads to several near misses with him before he forces them to crash their car and killing one of the group members. With their car smashed, they hike down a desolate road where they encounter various creeps and weirdos until they cross paths with Bunnyman again who, along with his demented family, unleashes hell on them all.**Spoiler alert**
When I saw the title Bunnyman and noticed the killer in the film was wearing an Easter bunny costume I was hoping the film took place in, or around, Easter. Sadly, it did not. In fact, it had nothing to do with the holiday which was a bit of a let down. The film could have been so much more if it was a holiday themed slasher.
The acting in this one is riding the rails between decent and bad. Most of the cast shows promise they just had a hard time reading the situation. When the scene called for a particular emotion or reaction, the entire cast misread it. This is when more experience would have helped.
The story for this film is where the film falters. This story is one we have seen before. In fact, Tobe Hooper told it better with his 1974 classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film had multiple scenes that was still for still the same as TCM. With that being said, the story was very fun even with the Easter bunny angle. The film would have been even more fun if it would have followed the Easter holiday and modeled the kills out of instruments known for that holiday.
Finally, the film has a lot of on screen kills. To be honest, the film had more blood and deaths than I expected which was a great surprise. Sadly, the special effects are not that great but they did not take away from the experience. Overall, Bunnyman is a fun slasher that borrows heavily from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film is fun but could have been so much more. Check it out!
