#steve rudzinski

[movie-titlecards]

A Meowy Christmas Vacation (2020)

My rating: 6/10

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Captain Z & the Terror of Leviathan (2014)

My rating: 6/10

Okay, but what was with the whole "Me the captain, me pilot the car" thing? He's a pirate, not Cookie Monster.

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Super Task Force One (2013)

My rating: 6/10

This is a Power Rangers fan film with the serial numbers just barely filed off, and it's a rather old school one - there clearly is no budget, and none of the glossiness that led up to the whole Axanar... thing, so the protagonist is fighting guys in dollar store Halloween masks wearing a painted motorcycle helmet and a suit with the paint rubbing off. There's a certain charm to that, though, it's pretty well written, and the actors aren't bad either, so overall it's a pretty fun time.

[cinema-stench]

The Survivors (2016)

The city is rocked with fear as a band of faceless “killers” indiscriminately slaughter everyone they can. This is especially frustrating for a separate troupe of “slashers” (parodying popular 90’s movie killers) who are philosophically bound to cliché horror movie conventions. On the case are a third team: a group of “slasher hunters” and “survivors” whose cause it is to stop the two aforementioned gangs before they join forces and start piling up even more bodies.

The Survivors is director Steve Rudzinski’s short film sequel to nearly every movie he’s made up to this point, as well as a semi-spoof of 90’s slasher movies such as Scream, Urban Legend, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. There is a lot going on in this movie, and unless one has seen the filmmaker’s previous efforts, it may also be overwhelming. But like those previous efforts, this movie is concept-driven; it has good ideas, unique perspectives, and new potential surfacing in every scene. Despite being almost unbearably silly and non-professional, it offers something more than just horror movie inside jokes and goofy action. It has persuasion.

Like 2011’s The Slasher Hunter, the parodies in this film are anything but subtle, but there is some satisfaction to be had in seeing a long overdue riff on the mostly dismissed Urban Legend. The references to and characters from past Rudzinski movies are surely treats for the fans, however awkward it might seem to corral so many into a single short (didn’t catch any Super Task Force One references though). The blood is mostly relegated to CG splatter, making the action not quite as gory as one might expect given the premise. On an overall technical level, the production looks and sounds very sleek with good editing, audio, and picture.

The Survivors feels more like a serial installment rather than a stand-alone short film; there is a lot to work with during a short amount of time. It contains some fairly interesting material, but they are hidden behind a thick layer of ridiculous horror-comedy. I can’t say that I loved the movie, but thanks to the concept and the familiar faces, I wanted to see it to the end. Its biggest strength is that it works best as a gift to fans of Rudzinski’s back catalog, and as such it’s a must-see. For everyone else, it will be a more unusual experience. –N.Weaver

[cinema-stench]

Red Christmas (2014)

Tara is a twenty-six year old woman who is making a video project of sorts, exploring her fondness of the Christmas season and her hatred for men. She is also a serial killer who seeks male victims during the month of December. While everyone else is out shopping for loved ones and drinking eggnog, Tara lures men to her large home, binds them to a chair, and tortures them to death. We spend time listening to Tara detail her traumatic family and school life and watch her sadistically torment a young fellow she brought home from town.

What we have here is another entry in the “found footage” style of filmmaking (fifteen years since The Blair Witch Project is a long time to keep calling it a “trend”), this time featuring a charismatic serial killer with a bit of a vanity problem, much like Julian Richards’ The Last Horror Movie but on a smaller scale and with a narrower scope. Also much like this film, there is a great disparity between the charming nature and attractiveness of Red Christmas’ killer/host and its graphic portrayal of violence. Even though I may have some gripes with the film being a found footage, the angle it takes by developing intimacy with such a terrible criminal (as corny as she sometimes can be in this instance) draws the viewer in with more pull than it would have from the victim’s point-of-view. I have recently seen two other films that similarly spotlight a psychopath as their subject and narrator, namely Jason Koch’s 7th Day and Henry Weintraub’s Killing Me, and the morbid desire to follow a heinous murderer around never quells. I guess that’s why true crime TV programs and books are always so popular.

Amie Wrenn does a very fine job as the sympathetic yet severely unhinged Tara. She is also adorable. She’s got that girl-next-door meets excitably awkward weird kid quality about her character down to a T. There are also some nice subtle leaks illustrating her irrational dark half sprinkled throughout the movie, such as the contradictory statements and actions she makes. Tara mentions the root of her psychosis is from the poor treatment she received from males growing up, but when she reminisces of her female peers she states “I’m not going to blame them for something that I did.” She also points out the precautions she takes to avoid being caught by the FBI, yet she is filming herself and everything she is doing for… who exactly? There’s some deep stuff popping up here and there with her, but the majority of the film delivers what you came here for: humor, puns, and bloody mayhem.

The puns are awful. Next, the humor is very typical of director Steve Rudzinski’s movies, i.e. usually pop-culture oriented, high spirited, and/or self-referencing. Rudzinski’s cameo is a great example of the latter as Tara yells “Get outta my way, you fucking hack!” I was rolling. The violence, when it appears, comes from a different plane of existence entirely; it is brutal as all hell. Even the now-cliché fingernail torture that appears in every torture horror film is nasty and unflinching. The make-up effects are a little rubbery, but the bodily harm is so exceedingly gruesome that it takes any attention away from the make-up and directs it towards the act itself. Red Christmas isn't all blood and guts, but it ain’t no picnic either. 

Since this is a simple found footage feature, I don’t know if what I’m about to say is going to be a compliment, but Red Christmas is Rudzinski’s best shot and best looking film to date. The last five or ten minutes kind of start to fall apart, but a steady pace is held for most of the runtime and the photography is pristine and engrossing. It’s a very minimally produced movie and usually something like this would only have the Christmas gimmick going for it, but it really comes together nicely. My expectations were surmounted with the film overall, and for those who have a unique taste in micro-budget horror and an hour to kill, it is a nice and sick time-waster. -N.Weaver