Hoop-Tober Film #16

"Movies don't create psychos; they just make psychos more creative!"

Not the self-reflexive satire I might've hoped for, but a blunt, garish and completely straightforward farce. There's little subtlety to be found here, not many subversive ideas hiding under its surface. What you see is absolutely what you get. A completely straight played slasher movie, possibly the straightest ever (which is the point, of course), with a violation of an important rule: The characters in slasher movies must not watch other slasher movies. Famously, all the characters here are intimately familiar with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and most humorously, A Nightmare on Elm Street. That makes it wickedly self-aware, which is quite funny, but I think that's by in large all this has. There are moments where it comes close to real brilliance; there's a neat sequence near the end where the movie the characters are watching parallels the the events occurring as seen by the reporter on her hidden camera, for one. But by in large, this is in your face and paints in broad strokes, going for more gags than insights. Most of it does work as a mixture of farcical comedy and horror, and it's miles above the average slasher, but I wish it was more.