Now that camera equipment is cheap enough to fall into the hands of pretty much anyone who wants to make a movie, we've entered a strange new a
ge for slasher movie fans. Across the globe we've seen variations on the stalk and slash formula from pretty much every country with a unique little spin here and there, and of course, Australia has been no exception. Wolf Creek and Storm Warning are still the gold standard in modern Aussie slasher fare by far, but here's another one with a bit of backwoods drive-in style savagery thrown in for good measure: Come and Get Me.
The story is simplicity itself as four Brisbane party girls decide to head out for a night on the town, as long as they get home by 5 in the morning. They sweet talk one of their sort-of boyfriends into giving them a lift, and he dumps them downtown at a restaurant where they do shots and get served by the world's youngest waitress. Meanwhile a nameless, traumatized girl is being pursued and assaulted in the woods by a trio of foul-mouthed cretins, who kill her off and head into town for a few drinks (and bashing of innocent passersby in the street). One of the girls, Susan (Blair), recognizes a guy from high school who had a crush on her, and of course he's also one of the baddies. Soon enough (well, sort -- we're halfway into the movie by this point) they all wind up in the same car heading out to the middle of nowhere, where things go very bad and very bloody in a hurry.
The packaging prominently compares this to Last House on the Left, presumably due to the fact that much of it consists of characters chasing each other around in the woods and knifing each ot
her silly, with occasional sexual assault attempts thrown in for good measure. The main difference here is the fact that it takes place entirely at night with very few available light sources, so you'll probably be trying to figure out what's going on more than recoiling in terror. That said there are a few decent shocks here, including some squishy latex ef
fects, weirdly nasty use of a severed head, and plenty of abuse inflicted on pretty much every single speaking cast member. It's hard to get too emotionally engaged when all of the characters both male and female are vapid jerks who probably wouldn't cut it on a bad reality show, but if you're looking for a trashy horror rental to perk up a slow evening, this one certainly isn't boring.
The folks at Bloody Earth have made a small industry out of excavating horror movies from a very wide range of aspiring new filmmakers, and this one's up to their usual standards with a solid anamorphic transfer (at least as solid as the very dark source materials will allow), a good stereo surround track, and loads of supplements. First up among the extras is an audio commentary by lead baddie Radford and director Chris Sun, watching the film "for the twentieth time," and sharing stories about finding all the actors, getting shoved in grassy spots where the actors might have urinated earlier, subliminal skull imagery, and the lack of a lighting budget. You can also tell where the profane script came from as these guys manage to fly past the '83 Scarface in the cursing department within the first ten minutes, so this might not be the wisest DVD to pop in when relatives are visiting. There's also a seven and a half minute collection of deleted scenes (basically two very long extensions of ones in the actual film), 17 minutes of audition footage (with comparisons to the final performances), a 17-minute FX reel with the director commenting over demonstrations of the practical (and very gory) effects seen during the kill scenes, 12 minutes of rehearsal footage (the best showing a walkthrough for the big car scene with everyone sitting on a porch), 9 minutes of random interviews with the director and cast, and four minutes of "stuff-ups," basically a string of bloopers climaxing with a crew member farting into the camera. Also included are bonus Bloody Earth trailers for Red River, Stash, Ground Zero, Shock Festival, and Interplanetary.
