Director(s) – The Polonia Brothers (Splatter Farm)
Starring – Dave Fife (Bigfoot vs. Zombies), Brian Berry (Werewolf Rising), and Brice Kennedy (Splatter Beach)
Release Date – 2004
Rating – 3/5
Tagline – “You’ll be having a bade hare day”
I love holiday themed horror flicks. If you flip through my reviews you will find dozens of them. I love how corny and fun they can be when they turn something we find associated with a holiday into a weapon. No holiday is safe from the mayhem. We have thousands centered around Halloween, dozens set on Christmas, a few for Thanksgiving and New Years, one for April Fool’s Day and a remake, President’s Day, and even one of the holiest days imaginable, Easter. Easter, surprisingly, has several horror films but there is nowhere near enough for this holiday. There is so many possibilities with this holiday and a lot of potential is just sitting there waiting to be made.
One Easter horror film that I had always heard about but never actually seen was Peter Rottentail. This Polonia Brother’s horror comedy was in a box set released from SRS Cinema titled American Gore Stories. The set was cheap and I wanted to see the movie so I ordered it last summer and waited patiently to see the film when the time was right.
**Spoiler Alert**The film begins with a shitty magician trying to pay his bills by working kid’s birthday parties. The kids patronize him and ridicule him. He leaves the party distraught and comes across a long haired man who offers him a vile with a magic potion inside. He accepts the gift and the next day uses it as part of his act. It fails to work and he kills himself. We jump forward some time and the man is now an urban legend.
Teens gather on his grave on the anniversary of his death to party it up. Two cousins reunite to clean their deceased grandmother’s home to put on the market when one of them starts having visions of the magician. Soon, former friends of theirs starts dying one by one with only one connection, they all attended a birthday party together in their youth. Now he starts to suspect that the magician is back to kill him and anyone that attended the party while dressed as a rabbit.**Spoiler Alert**
People give films like this too much hate. They forget what kind of films these are and start watching them like they are horror movies that are meant to be serious. These films are campy, corny, cheesy, and any other word like that I am missing. They take items associated with the holidays, i.e. crosses, eggs, Christmas trees, whatever, and turn them into instruments of terror. How can you take a film seriously if the killer is wearing a rabbit or Santa costume? You can’t! These films are stupid for the sake of being stupid and Peter Rottentail is no exception.
The acting in this one is surprisingly not bad. Not saying it is good but it is far from being shit. The cast is fun and really rolled with the vibe of the film but they are far from winning any rewards. I can see why the Polonia Brothers cast the people they did. They all work very well with each other which makes the scenes very fun.
The story for this one is nothing new. In fact, it is the same story that I have seen in so many slashers. In fact, it is a story that will continue to be used to this day with Easter Sunday borrowing from it heavily. There has been so many slashers that follow a killer returning from the grave to seek out those that have wronged them. Hell, that is the basis for most of the slashers from the golden age of slashers.
Finally, the film has no on screen kills. All the deaths take place off screen which is very disappointing for a slasher. The whole point of a slasher is to watch a masker murderer kill teens. If we can’t watch teens die then why watch a slasher. Overall, Peter Rottentail is a fun no budget slasher. The cast is decent and the story is nothing new but it still entertains. Just don’t expect to see some breath taking kills. Check it out if you can get it for cheap.
