Splatter Farm

Title: Splatter Farm
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Mark Polonia, John Polonia, Todd Smith, Marion Costly
Directors: Mark Polonia, John Polonia, Todd Smith
Duration: 69 mins

The Polonia brothers are probably the nerdiest pair of filmmakers in all of the world. Their career spans across 3 decades which they filled with shot-on-video horror features. They have made over 25 movies since 1986, one of the best and most shocking being 1987's Splatter Farm. What's even more shocking is that they made this film at the age of 17.

Twin brothers Alan and Joseph drive into the country to spend summer at their lonely Aunt Lacey's farm. It doesn't take them long to discover that everything isn't as pleasant as they had hoped. First of all, Aunt Lacey has a farmhand, Jeremy, who likes to dismember his murder victims and sexually satisfy himself with their parts. And their dear aunt has a few little secrets of her own. She has her dead husband locked in the cellar, and she has an incestuous attraction to nephew Alan. The twin brothers soon find themselves smack dab in the middle of Lacey and Jeremy's horrific deviancy.

Being a SOV flick shot by seventeen-year-olds, one does not get impressed by the following: direction, acting, dialogue, lighting, sound, editing, plot, or development. Not surprisingly, all of these are seriously amateurish. It's not that big of a peeve for me, but you can easily find homemade YouTube videos with better talent in all of these departments. So in the beginning, you are quickly under the impression that this is just a couple of guys goofing around making a gory movie. But as the movie plays on, it kicks your ass.

This teenager-helmed movie contains some of the sickest and disturbing depravities outside of a Joe d'Amato film. There is elderly rape of a minor, homosexual assault, torture, necrophilia, mayhem, cannibalism, murder, coprophilia, and incest. The torture scene between Jeremy and Joseph is a nightmarish and disgusting acid trip of a sequence. Such is the sequence when Jeremy gives himself oral pleasure with a decapitated head. The character of Aunt Lacey is so unnerving in her deviant sexuality that it makes the viewer extremely uncomfortable. I'll have to listen to the commentary to find out how the Polonia brothers found this old woman to play such a nasty role.

Splatter Farm is a chilling example of how a film as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Transgressive video amongst the sickest.

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