Movie Review: 'Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill'

How does a movie manage to be only 77 minutes long and still feel tedious? By ripping off the Saw franchise minus the wit and the skill? That’s certainly the case that is made by the new horror movie Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill which feels twice as long as it’s barely theatrical release run time. This dimwitted wannabe exploitation horror flick from former God-sploitation director Jared Cohn, director of the equally tedious God’s Club, wants to marry Saw to Herschel Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman but lacks even the skill to match those low budget heroes of the drive-in genre.

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill is about an all-girl punk band called Kill Pussy Kill which is finishing one big gig and is headed to another down the road on Halloween night. Unfortunately, they catch the attention of a former Army Ranger (Dave Mustaine of Megadeth fame in voice only here) who decides that their days of smoking crack, sex in the back of the van debauchery is offensive to him and he’s going to teach them a lesson.

With the help of his buddy Dale (Richard Grieco), the Army Ranger, credited as The Mastermind, captures the band and locks them in a basement and proceeds to knock off as many clichés of the Saw franchise he can think of. The film employs Mustaine to provide gravel voiced warnings about ‘playing the game or else’ and lays out the nonsensical rules about how some of the band can escape if they are willing to kill other members of the band and blah blah blah; it’s like Saw if you only knew the premise of the franchise.

It’s funny, I can sense that the makers of the movie want me to give this movie a bad review. This is the kind of movie that wants to be able to tell you how much critics hate it. They want to offend a critic, that’s why they are making sure so many critics have access to the movie. The marketing campaign wants for critics to call the movie disgusting and talk about how exploitative it is so they can wear it like some unearned badge of honor. The title alone, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill, tells you exactly what the filmmakers are after.

There is an audience out there that lives for the kind of movies that Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill wishes it were; the kind of movie that offends the mainstream. Unfortunately, other than the shock title, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill lacks the ambition to be truly offensive. Don’t misunderstand, the film is offensive in how transparently it wishes to be thought of as offensive, but having seen movies by Herschel Gordon Lewis and other genuine Grindhouse lifers, I can tell you that Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill couldn’t come close to holding those films bloody entrails.

The makers of Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill fail miserably at every turn to try to combine the tropes of the Saw movies with the reputation of a drive-in horror movie but, the series of ‘Traps’ have no point, payoff or wit. James Wan, Lee Whannell and the crew that worked on the Saw franchise had a unique and fascinating point. Those films asked pointed questions while employing seriously disturbing gore to drive the point home. The makers of Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill think it’s enough to pose a provocative ‘what would you do’ question but cops out on actually making the moral question have any weight or deeper meaning.

The only truly offensive thing about Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill is the use of the military as a framing device for the killer’s backstory. The film opens in 1996 and for unexplained reasons the military is in Afghanistan battling terrorists. Army Rangers are captured and the filmmakers use this scenario for the purpose of cheap gore, portraying a soldier getting his head cut off by the terrorists. Another soldier is then shot in the head before we get to our killer who has his face sheared off while the terrorists mock him for being an American and asking why Americans celebrate Halloween.

Why does this then make the soldier decide to hunt down punk bands on Halloween? The film doesn’t bother to explain. The military angle exists solely so they can exploit the shock of a soldier getting his head cut off by a terrorist. It’s cheap and unnecessary and it’s the only time when Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill actually seems to have any ounce of courage in its exploitation violence. The rest of the movie is remarkably tame by comparison and only serves to underline the point that this isn’t a real exploitation movie, just one that hopes a couple of cheap shots will piss off enough mainstream critics to get the film some cheap buzz.