February 21st, 2015 - Everyone Must Die! (2012)


Everyone Must Die is a little confusing at first. Okay, it's a lot confusing at first. You can tell right off the bat that it's a very indie production ("it looks like a home movie," my wife said), but it seems like it's trying to be serious. A masked killer, all in black, is chasing a bunch of people out of a house. It's just so poorly edited that you can't really tell what the hell is going on - is he actually killing people? He strangles a woman for like 3 seconds, but then I guess she's dead? Is the non-masked dude stabbing the killer or the woman? It's all very unclear. But then the "hero" gets out the lawn mower and runs the killer over, starting a trend of people dying off screen with blood flying up everywhere.

Later, the law gets involved, and you start to wonder how serious this is all supposed to be. The acting and dialogue is super cheesy, but that's just how these things go, right?  Then, the next batch of victims is four people camping, and you begin to realize that Everyone Must Die! is meant to be a joke. Sort of winking at the camera and saying "hey guys, we're making a stupid horror movie!" And as far as those sorts of things go... it still isn't very good - but it could be worse.

From the camping scene on, every character is identified by one really easy to remember trait. There's MC Pink, the gay rapper who only talks in rhyme. The rich girl always talking about daddy's money. The guy who really likes golf who is always carrying around a 3-wood and making golf references. And my personal favorite, the guy who really likes eggs - he has an egg on his t-shirt and is always (seriously) talking about how awesome eggs are. There's like 10 more.

It's honestly a little bit admirable how committed the filmmakers are to being so goddamned stupid. And it's even kind of funny every once and a while. Mostly, it's just grating, but I'll cop to laughing a couple of times.

There is supposedly some sort of mythology to the killer. He dresses in all black and has a black mask on - think the Green Man from Always Sunny, only black. He apparently goes from small town to small town killing 24 people in 24 hours. He's done this in like 7 towns up to now, and is known to be in the next town over, but that doesn't faze our party-goers. So of course, he tries to kill them. Some guy whose sister was killed by this guy wants revenge, so he shows up to try to stop him. They end up in a battle to the death against this vicious masked killer - who may be more than he seems.

Or he might not be. They never really explain it very well.

As I said earlier, Everyone Must Die! is a very indie production (imdb has the budget at $3,500) - that seems about right. It looks really bad, the acting ranges from passable to distractingly bad, and the gore is pretty weak. They use a lot of fake blood, but it's mostly of the "swing something offscreen and blood will splatter" variety. There isn't much of a story and it's pretty tasteless.

BUT - it never pretends to be anything else. There is a little confusion at the beginning, but if you make it 10 minutes in you know exactly what you're going to get. If kind of amateurish indie horror/comedy isn't your bag, Everyone Must Die! lets you know pretty quickly that this is NOT the movie for you. If this type of humor is obnoxious to you, turn it off, because that's what you're going to get for the next 70 some minutes.

To be honest, if I wasn't watching a horror movie every day, this is one I would have stopped. And, having seen the whole thing, I would gladly stand by that hypothetical decision. But after getting a kind of sick feeling in my stomach after the introduction to the first group of characters (tough girl, MC Pink, guy who really likes science, girl who really likes mysticism), I will say things went slightly better than I expected. But it was still a pretty rough ride.

I would   not recommend   this film.

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